System For Expression Of Genes In Plants From A Virus-Based Expression Vector

ABSTRACT

Modified expression vectors, including Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) expression vectors, methods for modifying such vectors, and uses of the same are disclosed.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application of U.S. Ser. No. 12/524,812, filed Nov. 3, 2009, now allowed, which claims priority to PCT/US2008/001101 filed Jan. 28, 2008, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/898,051 filed Jan. 29, 2007, and 60/961,728 filed Jul. 24, 2007, the entire disclosures of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH

This invention was not made with any Government support and the Government has no rights in this invention.

TECHNICAL FIELD AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY OF THE INVENTION

This invention is directed to novel expression vectors, including Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) expression vectors, methods for modifying such vectors, and uses of the same.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Plant virus-based vectors allow for the rapid, transient expression of proteins in whole plants (Pogue et al. 2002; Scholthof et al. 2002). Although many different plant viruses have been modified to function as expression vectors, Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) based vectors express the highest levels of foreign protein in plants (Pogue et al. 1998; Yusibov et al. 1999). TMV-based vectors were among the first viral vectors to be used for either gene expression or gene silencing in plants (Fitzmaurice et al. 2002; Kumagai et al. 1995; Kumagai et al. 1993). They have been effective vectors for the production of many different kinds of proteins in plants including allergens (Breiteneder et al. 2001; Krebitz et al. 2000), antibodies (Giritch et al. 2006) or antibody fragments (McCormick et al. 1999), and vaccine candidates (Gleba et al. 2005; Turpen et al. 1995).

TMV is an RNA virus that expresses large amounts of coat protein (CP), from a subgenomic promoter. To convert TMV to an efficient expression vector, an additional, heterologous coat protein subgenomic promoter and restriction enzyme sites for cloning of foreign DNA sequences were inserted into a T7 promoter driven cDNA clone of TMV (Shivprasad et al. 1999). In vitro transcription of this plasmid with T7 RNA polymerase is needed to generate biologically active transcripts. Transcripts are typically rub-inoculated by hand onto plants to initiate an infection (Pogue et al. 1998). The in vitro transcription and rub inoculation steps, in particular, add significantly to the cost and complexity of using TMV vectors.

Agroinfection (Grimsley 1995; Grimsley et al. 1986) is an alternative, less-expensive strategy for infecting plants with RNA viruses. In agroinfection, a plant functional promoter and RNA virus cDNA are transferred as T-DNA from Agrobacterium into plant cells. The T-DNA is transcribed in planta, to generate biologically active viral RNAs that can initiate self-replication. Although agroinfection has been used for many different plant RNA viruses, it has not been routinely used with TMV-based vectors.

Recently, an agroinfection-compatible TMV expression vector was constructed with extensive modifications to the TMV cDNA. These alterations included multiple mutations, to destroy cryptic introns, and insertion of multiple plant-gene introns into the TMV cDNA sequences in a binary vector (Marillonnet et al. 2005). These mutations improved the efficiency by which TMV vectors can be introduced into plants by agroinfection and are used in a process called “magnifection” (Gleba et al. 2005; Marillonnet et al. 2004). In magnifection, whole plants are submerged and infiltrated with Agrobacterium cultures carrying intron-modified TMV sequences in a binary vector. While the magnifection process is efficient, it is not easily adapted to a high throughput workflow. Also, the increased size of the intron-modified vectors can make cloning into these vectors more challenging. In addition, it is not clear if the intron-modified vectors are absolutely required for efficient local and systemic infection of plants with TMV when using standard agroinfection procedures.

In addition, as interest in proteomics, biochemistry and protein structure increases there is an increasing need for efficient, easy-to-use recombinant protein expression systems. Improving transient expression vectors so they are easier to use, more cost-effective and produce higher levels of recombinant proteins will be of great use.

Certain transient expression systems take advantage of the ability of Agrobacterium tumefaciens to transfer DNAs into plant cells. A. tumefaciens cell suspensions simply infiltrated (or injected) into leaves can efficiently transfer sequences from the T-DNA region of a modified A. tumefaciens Ti (binary) plasmid into plant cells. If the T-DNA transferred into the plant cell contains a DNA sequence of interest joined to a plant-functional promoter, the transferred DNA would be transcribed in the plant nucleus. One disadvantage of this approach, however, is that the expression of the T-DNA is generally quite low and transient and expression drops off after 5 days or so.

It was recently demonstrated that one reason for this was that post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) directed toward the transcribed T-DNA was being induced in the plant after agroinfiltration. It was determined that this could be at least partially overcome by using two different A. tumefaciens cultures to simultaneously co-introduce T-DNAs for both a cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter (35S) driven gene of interest and a 35S driven RNA silencing suppressor gene into cells. Ectopic transient expression of an RNA silencing suppressor protein (such as the p19 protein from tomato bushy stunt virus) suppressed the PTGS of the introduced T-DNA. This resulted in an increase in the amount of recombinant protein expressed. For some proteins, ectopic co-expression of p19 resulted in a nearly 50-fold increase in recombinant protein expression levels (Voinnet et al., 2003).

Partially because of this improvement, this strategy has become one of the more commonly used plant transient expression systems. Using this strategy, hundreds of plant proteins have been expressed in a relatively high-throughput fashion (Popescu et al., 2007). One limitation of this strategy, however, is that relatively high concentrations of A. tumefaciens cell suspensions must be infiltrated into leaves in order to get the highest expression levels possible. For some plant species the infiltration of such high concentrations of A. tumefaciens can elicit negative (hypersensitive) responses from the plant (unpublished observations).

Other transient expression systems are based on plant viruses such as TMV, tobacco mosaic virus. TMV is a rod-shaped virus that has a single stranded ‘plus sense’ RNA genome. TMV expresses four proteins from three open reading frames. Two viral genes (the viral ‘movement protein’ and the capsid protein) are expressed from separate subgenomic promoters. To convert TMV into an expression vector, an additional subgenomic promoter was inserted into the viral genome to drive the expression of an inserted foreign gene. Plants can be inoculated with TMV vectors through a process called “agroinfection.” In agroinfection, A. tumefaciens was used to deliver a T-DNA comprised of a 35S promoter driven TMV cDNA to plant cells. Transcription of the T-DNA in the plant nucleus gave rise to an RNA that was capable of initiating self-replication in the cytoplasm. Multiple reports have documented the low agroinfection efficiency of the typical 35S-driven TMV vector (Turpen et al., 1993; Marillonnet et al., 2005; Man and Epel, 2006).

Therefore, in spite of intron-modified TMV vectors that have been recently constructed, there remains a need for TMV expression vectors with at least one or more of the following features: 1) contains convenient cloning sites for genes of interest; 2) can be used to infect plants in an easy and cost-effective manner; and, 3) leads to efficient systemic infection of inoculated plants.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect, there are provided novel Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) expression vectors and novel methods for modifying TMV vectors. The methods provide modifications that improve both the options for cloning genes into TMV and the ease and efficiency of infecting plants with TMV vectors.

In one particular aspect, a 35S-promoter driven TMV based expression vector was constructed in the mini-binary plasmid pCB301. Plants were reliably infected by TMV vectors via an agroinfection method. In one embodiment, the agroinfection efficiency was dramatically increased when the gene for the RNA silencing suppressor p19 was co-introduced along with the 35S driven TMV clone. This modification makes it possible to recover TMV-expressed recombinant proteins from the agroinfiltrated tissue itself.

In another aspect, the cloning options were improved by the development of a simple, novel and inexpensive method for cloning DNA inserts into the agroinfection-compatible TMV expression vector. The cloning method allows for the efficient, directional cloning of PCR products, without the need for restriction enzyme digestion of PCR products. The cloning method does not rely on expensive topoisomerase or recombinase enzymes and uses commonly available enzymes.

In another aspect, there is provided a TMV-based expression vector system that facilitates the use of TMV vectors, especially in high-throughput experiments.

In another aspect, the vectors and methods can easily be applied to other expression vector systems.

In one particular aspect, there is provided an improvement to transient expression, which is a rapid, useful approach for producing proteins of interest in plants.

In particular, there is described herein a system for improving the TMV-based transient expression vectors in order to express very high levels of foreign proteins in plants where the TMV vectors are efficiently delivered to plant cells by agroinfection.

In one particular aspect, there is provided an agroinfection method that is very efficient and which uses a 35S promoter-driven TMV replicon that lacks the TMV coat protein (CP) gene sequence.

In another particular aspect, there is provided a “CP deletion” TMV expression vector that has several useful features as a transient expression system including: improved ease of use, higher protein expression rates, and improved biocontainment. In one embodiment, by using the CP deletion TMV expression vector, foreign proteins were expressed at levels of 3-5 mg/gm fresh weight of plant tissue.

In another particular aspect, there is provided a transient expression vector that is a useful tool for expressing recombinant proteins in plants. In one embodiment, the transient expression vector is especially useful for high-throughput expression applications.

There is also provided herein a process where the DNA sequence encoding the RNA replicon is stably integrated into a plant cell genome. In yet another aspect, there is provided herein a vector where the DNA encoding the RNA replicon is stably integrated into the genome of the plant cell. In still another aspect, there is provided herein a method where introducing the vector comprises performing Agro bacteria-mediated transformation, biolistic-mediated transformation or Whiskers-mediated transformation.

Various objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, when read in light of the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed in color. Copies of this patent or patent application publication with color drawing(s) will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee.

FIG. 1: Maps of plasmids used or generated—p30BGFP is a TMV vector under the control of the T7 promoter. Individual genes in TMV vectors are depicted by open boxes. TMV vectors express genes expressed from subgenomic promoters (sgp) in the viral RNA. Location of sgps in the TMV cDNA are identified by bent arrows in the p30BGFP diagram. T7 transcripts of p30BGFP are processed by a ribozyme (Rz, grey box) to generate the authentic 3′ TMV end.

pJL22 contains the TMV 5′ and 3′ ends and Rz sequence in an Agrobacterium binary vector. pJL22 lacks approximately 4 kb of internal TMV vector sequence. T-DNA borders (T, black boxes) are shown in all binary vector diagrams. Locations of individual restriction enzyme sites used in vector construction are identified.

Sequence of multiple cloning sites (MCS) in pJL36 [SEQ ID NO: 16] and 43 [SEQ ID NO: 8] are presented. Restriction enzyme recognition sequences are underlined. Because SapI is non-palindromic (GCTCTTC N1/4) both strands of the MCS of pJL43 are presented for clarity. Location of gene sequences for Replicase (Replicase), movement protein (MP), Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and coat protein (CP) are identified. Other Abbreviations used: T7, T7 RNA polymerase promoter; 35S, Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter; 3′T, CaMV 3′ terminator sequence. Location of subgenomic promoters are only identified in the p30BGFP diagram. Drawings not to scale.

FIG. 2: Diagram of a Sticky RICE cloning reaction into pJL43. Sticky RICE uses mixtures of DNA polymerase and ligase (and, optionally, polynucleotide kinase) with specially designed vector and insert DNAs to directionally ligate DNAs. Single stranded 3 nt, 5′ overhangs are generated on pJL43 [SEQ ID NO: 8] by digestion the restriction endonuclease SapI (underlined). Vector is treated with phosphatase after digestion to remove phosphates from 5′ ends of DNA. I. Purified PCR product [amplified with 5′ phosphorylated primers that begin with 5′GGCCWW and 5′GCWW (W=A or T)] is added to SapI cut pJL43. II. A mixture of T4 DNA polymerase, the nucleotides dATP/dTTP and T4 DNA ligase are added to combined vector and PCR product. During this step the 5′ overhangs of SapI cut pJL43 are altered by the T4 DNA polymerase. A single G residue is removed from the 3′ end of the left end of the SapI cut vector, to generate a 5′ overhang of GGCC. A single A residue is added to the 3′ end of the right end of the SapI cut vector, to generate a 5′ overhang of GC Similarly, the 3′ to 5′ exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase in the presence of dATP and dTTP removes G or C residues from the 3′ ends of the PCR product. Complementary 5′ overhangs in vector and PCR product (insert) guide annealing of DNAs. III. Annealed DNAs are joined by T4 DNA ligase. Sequences of the PCR product are in bold type. Vector sequences in final joined product are in all caps. The recognition sequences for the restriction endonucleases StuI (AGGCCT) and Hind III (AAGCTT) are generated at the vector-insert junctions. ATCGAggcctt is disclosed as SEQ ID NO: 18.

FIGS. 3A and 3B: Agroinfection of plants with pJL43:GFP vector. FIG. 3A: Effect of p19 on agroinfection efficiency of a 35S driven TMV expression vector. Agrobacterium cultures containing plasmids pJL43:GFP (35S driven TMV expression vector with GFP insert), pJL4 (empty vector control), or pJL3:p19 (35S driven p19 gene) were suspended at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0 in induction media. Cultures sat at room temperature overnight prior to infiltration into N. benthamiana leaves. Leaves were infiltrated with a 1:1 mixture of pJL43:GFP with pJL4 (FIG. 3A-1) or pJL3:p19 (FIG. 3A-2) culture. Leaves infiltrated with 1:50 dilution of pJL43:GFP combined 1:1 with undiluted pJL4 (FIG. 3A-3) or pJL3:p19 (FIG. 3A-4) cultures. Leaves were photographed under UV illumination approximately 3 days post infiltration. FIG. 3B: Systemic infection of N. benthamiana plant with TMV:GFP approximately 11 days after infiltration with Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP. Plant photographed under UV light.

FIG. 4A: Photographs showing expression of Green fluorescent protein (GFP) from TMV:GFP in local or systemically infected tissue. N. benthamiana plants were infiltrated with a 1:1 mixture of pJL43:GFP and pJL3:p19 Agrobacterium cultures (both at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0). Five days post infiltration (DPI) infiltrated tissue was collected and extracted (local, or L-sample). About 14 days post infiltration a leaf systemically infected with TMV:GFP was collected and extracted (S-sample). Extraction conditions: leaf tissue was ground in the presence of 2 mls 50 mM Acetate buffer, pH 5.0 per gram fresh weight. Extract was heated at 42° C. 10 minutes and centrifuged 10 minutes at 13K×g to clarify. Supernatants (5 μl aliquots) were analyzed on 4-20% SDS-PAGE gradient gel. Gel was stained with Coomassie blue.

FIG. 4B: SDS-PAGE showing Lane M; MW marker; H, healthy plant extract; L, Local extract; S, Systemic extract. CP, 17 kDa TMV coat protein, GFP, 26.8 kDa GFP. Local protein sample was a 5 DPI leaf. Systemic leaf was from a plant agroinfected with pJL43:GFP 14 days prior to harvest.

FIG. 5A: pJL36-35S driven 30B type TMV based expression vector. Has PacI-AvrII and NotI sites for cloning. Kan resistant vector replicates in E. coli or Agrobacterium. Agroinfiltration vector. T-DNA borders not shown in map. Vector backbone=pCB301.

FIG. 5B: pJL36 vector DNA sequence [SEQ ID NO: 5]: nt #1=first nt of TMV U1. Description: 35S promoter driven TMV based expression vector in Agrobacterium compatible binary vector. Has PacI (ttaattaa), AvrII (cctagg) and NotI (gcggccgc) sites for cloning.

FIG. 6: pJL48 (pJL-TRBO)-GFP 35S driven TMV in binary vector with deletion of the CP gene. Kan resistance marker and T-DNA borders not shown in map. Plasmid replicates in either Agrobacterium or E. coli. Construction: GFPc3 gene (PCR product of oligos JAL 12 and 13). Digested with PacI-SpcI. Ligated into PacI-AvrII cut pJL48 (pJL-TRBO). Use: infiltrate Agrobacterium containing this plasmid into N. benth plants to produce GFP.

FIG. 7A: Plasmid maps of pJL22 U 1 3′, pJL36, and pJL48 (pJL-TRBO)=35S driven TMV expression vector in binary vector backbone. Clone is lacking a CP orf and is capable of high-level expression of protein in plants. T-DNA borders not shown in map. Construction: vector backbone=pJL36 NotI-SfiI cut. Insert=1.5 kb NotI-SfiI fragment of pJL 22 U1 3′.

FIG. 7B: DNA Sequence of pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) expression vector [SEQ ID NO: 13]. Nt 1=first nt of TMV U1 strain. PacI (TTAATTAA), AvrII (CCTAGG) and NotI (gcggccgc) sites for cloning. After NotI site, U1 nts 6177 to 6396 (number according to Goelet et al 1982, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.) Vector has No CP gene, and is composed only of TMV U1 strain sequences, and other (non-viral) sequences for cloning, etc.

FIG. 8: Maps of plasmids used in Example II. The T-DNA regions of binary plasmids used in this example are represented. Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) duplicated 35S promoter (block arrow), CaMV polyA signal sequence/terminator (black box). TEV 5′ non-translated leader sequence (dark gray box); Ribozyme (light gray box); Bent arrows, subgenomic promoters. Open reading frames (ORFs) are represented by open boxes. Identities of ORFs are labeled in open boxes. Replicase; TMV 126K1183K orf; MP, movement protein; CP, coat protein; GFP, green fluorescent protein; P19, 19 kDa RNA silencing suppressor gene from tomato bushy stunt virus.

FIGS. 9A-9D: Comparison of agroinfection efficiency of pJL24 and pJL-TRBO vectors. T-DNAs of TMV-based expression vectors were introduced into N. benthamiana by agroinfection. Sections of an N. benthamiana leaf were infiltrated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens (A.t) cell suspensions transformed with plasmids as follows: FIG. 9A, A. t/pJL24 (OD₆₀₀ 1.0); FIG. 9B. Mixture of A.t./pJL24+A.t./pJL3:p 19 (each at final OD₆₀₀ of 0.5); FIG. 9 c. A. t./pJL-TRBO-G (OD₆₀₀ 1.0); FIG. 9D. Mixture of A. t./pJL-TRBO-G+A. t./pJL3:p19 (each at final OD₆₀₀ of 0.5). Photo taken under UV illumination 4 days post infiltration. In greyscale, GFP fluorescence appears as a light color.

FIGS. 10A and 10B: Effect of A. tumefaciens (A.t.) cell density on agroinfection of plants with pJL-TRBO expression vector. Leaves of N. benthamiana plants were infiltrated with A.t. cell suspensions transformed with various binary (modified Ti) plasmids. A. t. cell suspensions were diluted, as noted in figure, from an initial OD₆₀₀ of 1.0.

FIG. 10A. Individual leaves infiltrated with A. t./pJL-TRBO-G cell suspensions were photographed under UV illumination at 3 and 4 days post infiltration (DPI) as noted.

FIG. 10B. Left half of leaf infiltrated with 1:100 dil of A. t./pJL24. Right half of leaf infiltrated with a mixture of 1:100 dil of A. t./pJL24 and 1:10 dil of A. t./pJL3:P19. Photo taken under UV illumination 3 DPI.

FIGS. 11A-11C: JL-TRBO-G replicon does not move systemically in plants. One leaf of an N benthamiana plant was infiltrated with A. tumefaciens carrying pJL24 or pJL-TRBO-G plasmids. Plants were photographed under UV light to visualize the GFP expressed by either expression vector. Abbreviations used: DPI, days post infiltration.

FIG. 12: Quantitative analysis of GFP expression levels from TMV vectors JL-24 and JLTRBO. Leaves of N. benthamiana were infiltrated with A. tumefaciens cells transformed with plasmids identified in figure. Bottom: images of individual infiltrated leaves photographed under UV illumination at 4 DPI. Top: Quantitation of GFP fluorescence activity levels in extracts prepared from infiltrated leaves six days post infiltration. Extracts were analyzed by a plate-based GFP fluorescence assay. Purified recombinant His6-tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) was used to generate a standard curve. Results are presented in micrograms GFP produced per gram of infiltrated tissue.

FIG. 13: GFP expression from JL-TRBO vector. N. benthamiana leaves were infiltrated with A. tumefaciens cultures transformed with pJL-TRBO-G. Total protein extracts were prepared from infiltrated leaf tissue from 3 to 7 days post infiltration (DPI). Equal volumes of extracts were analyzed by SDS-PAGE followed by staining with Coomassie blue. Location of TRBO-expressed GFP is noted by filled arrowhead. Amount of Rubisco large subunit protein (open arrowhead) is greatly reduced in 3 to 6 DPI samples because they were subjected to a freeze-thaw. MW's of protein standards (in kDa) are noted at left of image. Lanes: M, MW marker; H, healthy plant extract; 3-7 extracts from JL-TRBO-G infiltrated leaves 3-7 DPI, respectively.

FIGS. 14A and 14B: Expression of various proteins from the JL-TRBO vector. N. benthamiana leaves were agroinoculated with JL-TRBO vectors expressing various genes. Total soluble protein extracts were prepared ca. 5 days post inoculation (DPI). Equal volumes of extract were loaded per lane. In some cases proteins were expressed as fusions to a peptide tag of His-6-Hemaglutinin peptide (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) (duplicated), H₆HA₂.

FIG. 14A: Coomassie blue stained SDS-PAGE gel of extracts.

FIG. 14B: Western (immuno-) blot analysis of extracts using anti-HA peptide primary antibody. Lanes: M, Molecular weight marker; M₂, See Blue molecular weight marker; H=healthy plant extract; Extracts from tissue infected with JL-TRBO vector expressing the following genes: 1, Phytopthora infestans Avr3a; 2, Aequorea victoria GFP; 3, GFP-H₆HA₂ fusion; 4, A. thaliana Adenosine Kinase; 5, 10^(th) type III (FN10) domain from human fibronectin; 6 L. esculentum RCR-3 proteinase; 7, L. esculentum P69b proteinase. White and grey circles denote location of FN10 and RCR-3 proteins on Coomassie blue stained gel, respectively.

FIG. 15A: a photograph, taken at 3 DPI, showing agroinfection with pJL24+vector, left image, and with pJL24+p19, right image; pJL24=35S:TMV:GFP.

FIG. 15B: a photograph, taken at 4 DPI, showing agroinfection with pJL24+vector, left image, and with pJL24+p19, right image; pJL24=35S:TMV:GFP.

FIG. 16A: a photograph, taken under fluorescent light at 4 DPI, showing agroinfection with pJL24+vector, left image, and with pJL24+p19, right image; pJL24=35S:TMV:GFP.

FIG. 16B: a photograph at 0.01 mm, taken under fluorescent light at 4 DPI, showing agroinfection with pJL24+vector, left image, and with pJL24+p19, right image.

FIG. 16C: SDS-PAGE showing that GFP is detectable by SDS PAGE in crude plant extracts.

FIG. 17A: plasmid maps of pJL24=35S:TMV-GFP; and pJL48=pJL-TRBO=35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP [SEQ ID NO:13].

FIG. 17B: a photograph showing: upper left quadrant—35S:TMV-GFP with no p19; upper right quadrant—35S:TMV-GFP with p19; lower left quadrant—35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP with no p19; and, lower right quadrant—35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP (aka pJL48-G, aka pJL-TRBO-G) with p19.

FIG. 18: a photograph showing N. benthamiana leaves infiltrated with 1:50 dilution of Agro/35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP.

FIG. 19: shows the SDS-PAGE analysis of protein extract where plants were infiltrated with Agro/35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP, extracts were made at various times post infiltration, the SDS-PAGE was run with 50 μl protein/lane, and stained with Coomassie Blue.

FIG. 20: a photograph showing the comparison of protein expression vectors on the same leaf: 35S:GFP, in the upper left quadrant of the leaf; 35S:GFP+35S:p19, in the upper right quadrant; 35S:TMV:GFP+35S:p19, in the lower left quadrant; and 25S:TMV:GFP ΔCP+35S:p19, in the lower right quadrant.

FIG. 21A: a photograph, taken under white light, showing protoplasts were generated from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO):GFP infiltrated N. benthamiana leaf, showing protoplasts made 6 DPI, 2.5 hour digest in enzyme solution.

FIG. 21B: a photograph, taken under UV light, showing protoplasts were generated from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO):GFP infiltrated N. benthamiana leaf, showing protoplasts made 6 DPI, 2.5 hour digest in enzyme solution.

FIG. 22: pJL66 DNA sequence [SEQ ID NO:14] which includes a 35S driven DNA encoding for a replicon comprised of sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of TMV in a binary vector backbone, where the replicon generated from the transcription of pJL66 is lacking a CP orf.

FIG. 23: pJL66—Binary vector, Kan resistance, T-DNA borders not shown in map. pJL66 is a deletion mutant of pJL24. All sequences downstream of GFP stop codon to last 4 codons of U5 CP were deleted from pJL24.

FIG. 24: photographs of plants infected with the TMV vector encoded in pJL66 via agroinfiltration/agroinfection.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Throughout this disclosure, various publications, patents and published patent specifications are referenced by an identifying citation. The disclosures of these publications, patents and published patent specifications are hereby incorporated by reference into the present disclosure to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains. For example, the general teaching for constructing viral plant vectors and using them to infect plants and express heterologous proteins therefrom is disclosed in the references cited herein, the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

As used in the specification and claims, the singular form “a”, “an” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. For example, the term “a cell” includes a plurality of cells, including mixtures thereof.

A “host” encompasses a cell, tissue or organism capable of being infected by and capable of replicating a nucleic acid such as a plant viral nucleic acid and which is capable of being infected by a virus containing the viral vector or viral nucleic acid. As used herein, host is intended to include generally whole plant, plant protoplast, plant cell, and plant tissues, plant organ or plant part such as root, stem leaf, flower or seed. This term is intended to include prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, organs, tissues, organisms, or in vitro extracts thereof, where appropriate. One preferred host cell is a plant cell.

Providing a plant cell with the DNA sequences of the present invention is not limited to any particular method for transforming plant cells and tissues. In addition to virus-mediated transient expression of non-integrating DNA, the invention includes stably integrating the DNA of the invention into the genome of a plant cell to effect expression of the RNA replicon. Technology for introducing DNA into plant cells is well-known to those of skill in the art. Four basic methods for delivering foreign DNA into plant cells have been described, all of which are consistent with the methods of the present invention. Chemical methods (Graham and van der Eb, Virology, 54(02):536-539, 1973; Zatloukal, Wagner, Cotten, Phillips, Plank, Steinlein, Curiel, Birnstiel, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 660:136-153, 1992); Physical methods including microinjection (Capecchi, Cell, 22(2):479-488, 1980), electroporation (Wong and Neumann, Biochim. Biophys. Res. Commun. 107(2):584-587, 1982; Fromm, Taylor, Walbot, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 82(17):5824-5828, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,253), WHISKERS (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,302,523 and 5,464,765), and biolistics (aka “the gene gun”) (Johnston and Tang, Methods Cell. Biol., 43(A):353-365, 1994; Fynan, Webster, Fuller, Haynes, Santoro, Robinson, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90(24):11478-11482, 1993); Viral methods (Clapp, Clin. Perinatol., 20(1):155-168, 1993; Lu, Xiao, Clapp, Li, Broxmeyer, J. Exp. Med. 178(6):2089-2096, 1993; Eglitis and Anderson, Biotechniques, 6(7):608-614, 1988; Eglitis, Kantoff, Kohn, Karson, Moen, Lothrop, Blaese, Anderson, Avd. Exp. Med. Biol., 241:19-27, 1988); and Receptor-mediated methods (Curiel, Agarwal, Wagner, Cotten, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 88(19):8850-8854, 1991; Curiel, Wagner, Cotten, Birnstiel, Agarwal, Li, Loechel, Hu, Hum. Gen. Ther., 3(2):147-154, 1992; Wagner et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89 (13):6099-6103, 1992); Agrobacterium-Ti plasmid (White et al., Plant Biotechnology Kung and Arntzen eds. Butterworth Pub., Boston, Mass., 1989).

“Infection” includes the ability of a virus to transfer its nucleic acid to a host or the introduction of a viral nucleic acid into a host, such that the viral nucleic acid is replicated, viral proteins are synthesized. In this context, the terms “transmissible” and “infective” are used interchangeably herein. The term is also meant to include the ability of a selected nucleic acid sequence to integrate into a genome, chromosome or gene of a target organism.

The term “non-viral” is used here in a special sense to include any RNA segment which is not normally contained within the virus whose modification is exploited for effecting gene transfer and is therefore used synonymously with “exogenous”. Therefore, a gene derived from a different virus species than that modified is included within the meaning of the terms “non-viral” and “exogenous” for the purposes of describing the invention. For example, a non-viral gene as the term is used herein could include a gene derived from a bacterial virus, an animal virus, or a plant virus of a type distinguishable from the virus modified to effect transformation. In addition, a non-viral gene may be a structural gene derived from any prokaryotic or eukaryotic organism.

It will be understood by those ordinarily skilled in the art that there may exist certain genes whose transfer does not result in obvious phenotypic modification of the host cell. A phenotypic modification may occur, for example, if the translation product of the non-viral gene is toxic to the host cell, is degraded or processed in a manner which renders it non-functional or possesses structural features which render it impossible for the host cell to translate in sufficient quantities to confer a detectable phenotype on the transformed cells. However, the invention does not depend upon any specific property of an RNA segment or gene being transferred. Therefore, the possible existence of RNA segments or genes which fail to confer a readily observable phenotypic trait on recipient cells or plants is not relevant to the invention and, in any case, will be readily recognizable by those of ordinary skill in the art without undue experimentation.

“Phenotypic Trait” is an observable, measurable or detectable property resulting from the expression or suppression of a gene or genes. Phenotype includes both easily observable traits and biochemical processes.

“Plant Cell” is the structural and physiological unit of plants, consisting of a protoplast and the cell wall. “Plant Organ” is a distinct and visibly differentiated part of a plant, such as root, stem, leaf or embryo. “Plant Tissue” is any tissue of a plant in planta or in culture. This term is intended to include a whole plant, plant cell, plant organ, protoplast, cell culture, or any group of plant cells organized into a structural and functional unit. “Protoplast” is an isolated cell without cell walls, having the potency for regeneration into cell culture, tissue or whole plant.

“Promoter” is the 5′-flanking, non-coding sequence substantially adjacent a coding sequence which is involved in the initiation of transcription of the coding sequence.

The terms “nucleic acid sequence”, “polynucleotide”, “nucleotides” and “oligonucleotides” are used interchangeably. They refer to a polymeric form of nucleotides of any length, either deoxyribonucleotides or ribonucleotides, or analogs thereof. Polynucleotides may have any three-dimensional structure, and may perform any function, known or unknown. The following are non-limiting examples of polynucleotides: coding or non-coding regions of a gene or gene fragment, loci (locus) defined from linkage analysis, exons, introns, messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer RNA, ribosomal RNA, ribozymes, cDNA, recombinant polynucleotides, branched polynucleotides, plasmids, vectors, isolated DNA of any sequence, isolated RNA of any sequence, nucleic acid probes, and primers. A polynucleotide may comprise modified nucleotides, such as methylated nucleotides and nucleotide analogs. If present, modifications to the nucleotide structure may be imparted before or after assembly of the polymer. The sequence of nucleotides may be interrupted by non-nucleotide components. A polynucleotide may be further modified after polymerization, such as by conjugation with a labeling component.

A “gene” refers to a polynucleotide containing at least one open reading frame that is capable of encoding a particular polypeptide sequence after being transcribed and translated.

“Expression” refers to the process by which a polynucleotide is transcribed into mRNA and/or the process by which the transcribed mRNA (also referred to as “transcript”) is subsequently being translated into peptides, polypeptides, or proteins. The transcripts and the encoded polypeptides are collectedly referred to as gene product. If the polynucleotide is derived from genomic DNA, expression may include splicing of the mRNA in a eukaryotic cell.

“Exogenous RNA segment” describes a segment of RNA to be inserted into the virus RNA to be modified, the source of the exogenous RNA segment being different from the RNA virus itself. The source may be another virus, a living organism such as a plant, animal, bacteria, virus or fungus, the exogenous RNA may be a chemically synthesized RNA or it may be a combination of the foregoing. The exogenous RNA segment may provide any function that is appropriate and known to be provided by an RNA segment. Such functions include, but are not limited to, a coding function in which the RNA acts as a messenger RNA encoding a sequence which, translated by the host cell, results in synthesis of a peptide or protein having useful or desired properties. The RNA segment may also be structural, as for example in ribosomal RNA, it may be regulatory, as for example with small nuclear RNAs or anti-sense RNA, or it may be catalytic. An exogenous RNA segment can be a complete or partial coding sequence.

It is to be understood that various aspects of the method described herein can be modified as needed, depending upon specific aspects of the virus selected as the transforming agent and of the RNA segment to be inserted. For example, if the inserted gene is in the form of messenger-sense RNA to be directly translated by the transformed cell, the gene must be free of intervening, nontranslated sequences, such as introns. On the other hand, the inserted gene need not be a naturally occurring gene, but it may be modified, it may be a composite of more than one coding segment, or it may encode more than one protein. Combining insertions and deletions in order to control the total length or other properties of the modified RNA molecule may also modify the RNA. The inserted non-viral gene may be either prokaryotic or eukaryotic in origin as long as it is in a form, which can be directly translated by the translation machinery of the recipient cell. Eukaryotic genes containing introns within the coding sequence must therefore be inserted in the form of a cDNA copy of the eukaryotic messenger RNA encoding the gene. The inserted gene may contain its own translation start signals, for example, a ribosomal binding site and start (AUG) codon, or it may be inserted in a manner which takes advantage of one or more of these components preexisting in the viral RNA to be modified. Certain structural constraints must be observed to preserve correct translation of the inserted sequence, according to principles well understood in the art. For example, if it is intended that the exogenous coding segment be combined with an endogenous coding segment, the coding segment to be inserted must be inserted in reading frame phase therewith and in the same translational direction.

In a broad aspect, there is described herein plasmids that include a 35S promoter driven version of the TMV expression vector “30BGFP” which was constructed in the T-DNA region of the mini-binary vector pCB301. This plasmid was then modified to contain rare restriction endonuclease sites for standard restriction enzyme based cloning approaches.

The 35S driven TMV vector was also modified to be compatible with a novel and rapid cloning method. In this method PCR products were directly cloned into a specially designed TMV vector, without the need for digesting PCR products with restriction enzymes. Two SapI type IIS restriction enzyme sites were inserted into the TMV cDNA in the binary vector. SapI cuts outside of its recognition sequence to leave 5′ overhangs of 3 nucleotides. The two SapI sites were engineered to generate G/C rich 5′ overhangs after digestion. PCR primers were designed with short, 5′ G/C rich ‘clamps’ complementary to the sticky ends of the SapI cut vector. Purified PCR products were treated with a proofreading DNA polymerase in the presence of dATP and dTTP to generate 5′ GC rich sticky ends on the PCR product. As described herein, in order to reflect that sticky ends were generated in a restriction enzyme independent manner, this method is called “sticky RICE” (Restriction enzyme Independent Cohesive Ends). The sticky RICE method allows for directional cloning of PCR products in 30 minutes with cloning efficiencies approaching 90%, and does not use expensive recombinase or topoisomerase enzymes.

It is to be understood that modification of the TMV vector to be compatible with sticky RICE cloning thus enables the cloning of a PCR product regardless of the restriction enzyme sites that may be present in the PCR product. This simplifies PCR primer design and is particularly useful when cloning DNA sequences in which the complete DNA sequence is not known.

In one particular aspect, it is described herein that the TMV vectors constructed all reliably infect Nicotiana bentharniana plants by the standard agroinfection procedure. It was determined that co-expression of a suppressor of RNA silencing dramatically increases the infection efficiency of the 35S driven TMV vector construct.

The co-introduction of a 35S-driven TMV:GFP vector and an RNA silencing suppressor gene resulted in GFP expression in nearly every cell in the infiltrated tissue by 3 days post infiltration. This high transfection efficiency makes it possible to recover high levels of recombinant GFP from the Agroinfiltrated tissue itself. This result further extends the utility of the TMV expression vector system.

The cloning and/or Agroinfection procedure methods described herein can be readily applied to other cloning and expression vector systems and are especially amenable to high-throughput cloning workflows. These improved methods also make it easier and more cost effective to use TMV-based plant expression vectors.

The vectors, cloning methods and efficient agroinfection procedures described herein represent a significant advance in both cloning genes into a TMV expression vector and in infecting plants with recombinant TMV expression vectors. The improvements in the cloning methods and in the infection of plants are significantly less costly than alternative strategies and are highly efficient, scalable and require less hands-on time than previous approaches. The present TMV expression vector system now allows for the more effective use of TMV expression vectors since the TMV expression vectors are now faster, more reliable and easier to use than prior strategies. In addition, the present TMV expression vector system presented herein can also be used to improve other expression and cloning vector systems.

It is to be understood that the vectors can be introduced into a plant cell by one or more of hand inoculations where drops of the preparation are put onto a surface of a leaf and gently rubbed; mechanized inoculations of plants where plant bed inoculations are performed by spraying the vector solution onto the plants (which can have cut leaves); high pressure spray of single leaves which provides single plant inoculations by spraying the leaves with a narrow, directed spray; and vacuum infiltration where the inoculations may be accomplished by subjecting a host organism to a substantially vacuum pressure environment in order to facilitate infection.

Various suitable assays can be used to determine expression of the transgene. For example, non-limiting examples include detecting and/or quantifying the presence of transcribed sense or anti-sense strands of the transgene by conventional hybridization assays (e.g. Northern blot analysis), amplification procedures (e.g. RT-PCR), and array-based technologies. Expression of the transgene can also be determined by examining the protein product. A variety of techniques are available in the art for protein analysis. Non-limiting examples include radioimmunoassays, ELISA (enzyme linked immunoradiometric assays), “sandwich” immunoassays, immunoradiometric assays, in situ immunoassays (using e.g., colloidal gold, enzyme or radioisotope labels), western blot analysis, immunoprecipitation assays, immunofluorescent assays, and SDS-PAGE. It is to be generally understood that determining the protein level involves (a) providing a biological sample containing polypeptides; and (b) measuring the amount of any immunospecific binding that occurs between an antibody reactive to the transgene product and a component in the sample, in which the amount of immunospecific binding indicates the level of expressed proteins. Antibodies that specifically recognize and bind to the protein products of the transgene are required for immunoassays. These may be purchased from commercial vendors or generated and screened using methods well known in the art. The sample of test proteins can be prepared by homogenizing the eukaryotic transformants (e.g. plant cells) or their progenies made therefrom, and optionally solubilizing the test protein using any suitable detergents. Results obtained using any such assay on a sample from a plant transformant or a progeny thereof is compared with those from a non-transformed source as a control.

‘In a broad aspect, there is provided herein a process for expressing a sequence of interest in a plant cell, including a plant, plant part, or plant cell culture. The process includes providing a cell with a DNA sequence comprised of: i) a DNA sequence encoding an RNA replicon operably linked to a plant-functional promoter (capable of initiating transcription in a plant cell), and ii) a sequence of interest.

The sequences encoding the RNA replicon are derived from a plant virus. The RNA replicon generated by transcription of the DNA sequence is not a full-length virus sequence, but is deleted of certain virus sequences. The absence of these virus sequences causes an increased frequency of replicon formation compared to a full length virus RNA from which the replicon was derived. The process further includes causing the expression of the sequence of interest.

In one embodiment, the RNA replicon is derived from tobacco mosaic virus. In other embodiments, the RNA replicon is derived from a plant virus other than tobacco mosaic virus.

In a particular aspect, the RNA replicon can lack the coat protein gene sequence or at least lack a portion of the coat protein gene sequence.

In certain embodiments, the virus is lacking a sequence or sequences such that the lack of these sequences causes an increased frequency of replicon formation.

In a particular embodiment, the RNA replicon can be composed of RNA sequences from two different RNA viruses. In one embodiment, the RNA replicon is composed of RNA sequences from two different tobamoviruses. In another embodiment, the RNA replicon is composed of RNA sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of tobacco mosaic virus.

Also, in certain embodiments, the RNA replicon is not capable of systemically infected a host plant.

Also provided herein is a vector pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) which includes a 35S driven TMV expression vector in a binary vector backbone, where the replicon generated from the transcription of pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) is lacking a CP orf and is capable of expression of a desired product in plants. In one embodiment, the vector is substantially as shown in FIG. 7A and FIG. 8 and contains an inserted sequence of interest such that the sequence will be expressed from the RNA replicon derived from this DNA.

Also provided herein is a vector pJL66 [SEQ ID NO: 14] which includes a 35S driven DNA encoding for a replicon comprised of sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of TMV in a binary vector backbone, where the replicon generated from the transcription of pJL66 is lacking a CP orf.

In yet another aspect, there is provided herein a method for constructing pJL66 [SEQ ID NO: 14] which comprises deleting nucleotides 5788 to 6608 from pJL36.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein a vector comprising the nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: the nucleotide sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO:13; and a nucleotide sequence which encodes the same sequence of amino acids as encoded by the nucleotide sequence shown in SEQ ID NO: 13.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein a vector comprising the nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: the nucleotide sequence as shown in SEQ ID NOs: 15, 16, 17; and a nucleotide sequence which encodes the same sequence of amino acids as encoded by the nucleotide sequence shown in SEQ ID NOs: 15, 16, 17.

The host cell can comprise a whole plant, an isolated plant cell, or a protoplast. In certain embodiments, the plant host cell can comprise a natural host for Agrobacterium, and wherein introducing the replicon comprises performing Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation. Also, in certain embodiments, the promoter can be the Cauliflower mosaic virus CaVM35S promoter. Thus, there is also provided herein a plant cell that is transformed with a vector as described herein.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein an isolated nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 5.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein an isolated nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 13.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein an isolated nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 14.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein an isolated nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NOs: 15, 16, 17.

In a particular aspect, there is provided herein a method for recovering the product of an expressed gene of interest from a host cell, the method comprising: providing an expression vector comprising a promoter driven tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) vector, capable of non-systemically infecting a host cell, wherein the vector encodes the gene of interest; introducing the expression vector into the host cell to produce a transformed host cell; growing the transformed host cell under conditions suitable to effect transcription of the gene of interest; and recovering the product of the expressed gene of interest.

The method can include infecting the plants using one or more of agroinfiltration or agroinfection procedures. Also, the method can include introducing the vector by performing pressure infiltration of plant tissues, hand inoculation of a surface of a leaf, a mechanical inoculation of a plant bed, a high pressure spray of a leaf, or a vacuum infiltration.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method for extracting at least one recombinant product produced from a TMV based vector from an agroinfiltrated tissue, without having causing any systemic viral vector movement.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method for making pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) comprising: deleting a coat protein gene and 3′ non-translated tobamovirus sequences in pJL36, and replacing the deleted sequences with nts 6177 to 6395 of TMV U1 strain.

In another aspect, there is provided herein plants infected with one or more of the TMV expression vector as in any of the preceding claims wherein the plant is infected by one or more of agroinfiltration or agroinfection procedures.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method of agroinfection with pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) wherein co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor is not needed.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method of agroinfection with pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) wherein foreign protein expression levels from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) are different than foreign protein expression levels from pJL36.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) vector having no coat protein, wherein the pJL48 vector cannot move off an infiltrated plant, and cannot be easily/reliably transferred from one plant to another.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method for agroinfection comprising using pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) in Agrobacterium cultures diluted 10, 20, 50 or 100 or more fold (from an initial culture OD 600 of 1.0).

In another aspect, there is provided herein a method for improving agroinfiltration frequency comprising: deleting the CP gene sequence and the viral 3′ non translated sequences encoded in pJL36, and replacing the deleted sequences with TMV U1 nts 6177-6395.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a process for expressing a sequence of interest in a plant cell, including a plant, plant part, or plant cell culture, comprising: (A) providing a cell with a DNA sequence comprised of: i) a DNA sequence encoding an RNA replicon operably linked to a plant-functional promoter (capable of initiating transcription in a plant cell), and ii) a sequence of interest, wherein the sequences encoding the replicon are derived from a plant virus or plant viruses, (B) co-expressing in same plant cells a second sequence that causes an increased frequency of replicon formation compared to cells that do not express the second sequence; and (C) causing expression of said sequence of interest.

In one embodiment, the second sequence encodes for a protein that has RNA silencing suppression functions. In another embodiment, the second sequence encodes for the protein P19 from Tomato bushy stunt virus. In still another embodiment, the second sequence encodes for any gene from viral or cellular origins that has RNA silencing suppression functions.

Also, in certain embodiments, the sequence encodes for one or more of the following genes: P0 protein gene from a polerovirus, HC-Pro protein gene from a potyvirus, CP from turnip crinkle or related viruses, P21 from beet yellows closterovirus.

In another aspect, there is provided herein a protein expression vectors (replicons) in plants comprising one or more of pJL36, pJL48 (pJL-TRBO), which are capable of expressing proteins in plants. In certain embodiments, the protein expression vector is useful for expressing proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, for research purposes, for diagnostic assays, enzymes for synthesis/industrial use enzymes. In certain embodiments, the protein can include (but is not limited to) proteins that are antibodies, or antibody fragments, enzymes, hormones, peptides.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein derivatives of the vectors as described herein that enable high-level expression of secreted proteins in plants, or proteins targeted to various subcellular locations. In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein use one or more such expression vectors in an agroinfiltration procedure to express multiple proteins in the same cell. In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein use of a promoter driven version of a first gene of interest that is introduced into plant cells by agroinfiltration at the same time, or either before or after, introduction of the 35S promoter driven version of the pJL36 or pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) vectors expressing a second gene of interest.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for the expression of multiple recombinant proteins in the same plant cell comprising using one or more of the expression vectors of any of the preceding claims.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for expressing one or more genes of interest composed of multiple polypeptide chains, or producing more than one protein in a plant cell, where the method includes using one or more of the expression vectors of any of the preceding claims.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a modified pJL36 vector, wherein the Cauliflower mosaic virus ‘35S’ promoter is substituted with one or more other promoters including natural promoters, non-natural/synthetic promoters, or combinations. In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a modified pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) vector, wherein the Cauliflower mosaic virus ‘35S’ promoter is substituted with one or more other promoters including natural promoters, non-natural/synthetic promoters, or combinations. In certain embodiments, the promoters are inducible by temperature, other proteins, or chemicals/small molecules, as well as tissue-specific or constitutive promoters.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for cloning a vector, comprising: using mixtures of DNA polymerase and ligase (and, optionally, polynucleotide kinase) with specially designed vector and insert DNAs to directionally ligate DNAs.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for cloning a vector, comprising generating single stranded 3 nt, 5′ overhangs on pJL43 by digestion the restriction endonuclease SapI (underlined); treating the pJL43 vector with phosphatase after digestion to remove phosphates from 5′ ends of DNA.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for inserting a sequence into a DNA. The method includes: using a directional one-step cloning method where two SapI restriction endonuclease recognition sites are inserted into the vector cDNA sequence, and where the SapI sites are designed so that 5′ single stranded overhangs are maintained in the SapI cut vector in the presence of T4 DNA polymerase and dATP and dTTP.

In certain embodiments, PCR products are amplified using forward and reverse primers that have GC rich 5′ ends, the forward primers begin with 5′ GGCCWW and reverse direction primers begin with the sequence 5′ GCWW (W=A or T);where the PCR products amplified with primers are converted to DNAs with 5′ single stranded G/C rich overhangs by the action of T4 DNA polymerase in the presence of dATP and dTTP; and, where the 3″ to 5′ exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase removed 3′ nucleotides from DNA ends until counteracted by the 5′ to 3′ DNA synthesis activity.

Also, in certain embodiments, generation of sticky ends on PCR products, annealing of vector, and insert and ligation are all accomplished in a single reaction using a mixture of DNA polymerase, kinase and ligase enzyme activities.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method for directionally ligate a PCR product into one or more expression vectors using at least one method as described herein, regardless of the presence or absence of restriction enzyme sites within the DNA.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method as described herein where the expression vector is a pJL43 vector.

In yet another broad aspect, there is provided herein a method where purified PCR product [amplified with 5′ phosphorylated primers that begin with 5′GGCCWW and 5′GCWW (W=A or T)] is added to SapI cut pJL43; a mixture of T4 DNA polymerase, the nucleotides dATP/dTTP and T4 DNA ligase are added to combined vector and PCR product, where during this step the 5′ overhangs of SapI cut pJL43 are altered by the T4 DNA polymerase; a single G residue is removed from the 3′ end of the left end of the SapI cut vector, to generate a 5′ overhang of GGCC; a single A residue is added to the 3′ end of the right end of the SapI cut vector, to generate a 5′ overhang of GC; and, where the 3′ to 5′ exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase in the presence of dATP and dTTP removes G or C residues from the 3′ ends of the PCR product, and complementary 5′ overhangs in vector and PCR product (insert) guide annealing of DNAs; and wherein annealed DNAs are joined by T4 DNA ligase.

Those skilled in the art will understand that these embodiments are representative only of many constructs which may be useful to produce localized or non-systemic expression of nucleic acids in host organisms such as plants. All such constructs are contemplated and intended to be within the scope of the present invention.

The following examples illustrate the principles of the invention as applied to modification of TMV and the use of modified TMV containing a gene coding for green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the phenotypic transformation of various plants and protoplasts. The following examples utilize many techniques well-known and accessible to those skilled in the arts of molecular biology, cloning, plant cell biology, plant virology and plant tissue culture. Such methods are fully described in one or more of the cited references if not described in detail herein. Unless specified otherwise, enzymes were obtained from commercial sources and were used according to the vendor's recommendations or other variations known to the art. Those in the art also know reagents, buffers and culture conditions and reaction conditions for various enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Reference works containing such standard techniques include the following: R. Wu, ed. (1979) Meth. Enzymol. 68; R. Wu et al., eds. (1983) Meth. Enzymol. 100, 101; L. Grossman and K. Moldave, eds. (1980) Meth. Enzymol. 65; J. H. Miller (1972) Experiment's in Molecular Genetics; R. Davis et al. (1980) Advanced Bacterial Genetics; R. F. Schleif and P. C. Wensink (1982) Practical Methods in Molecular Biology; and T. Maniatis et al. (1982) Molecular Cloning.

As used herein, the name of a restriction endonuclease in isolation, e.g., “StuI-XbaI” or “PacI” refers to use of that enzyme in an enzymatic digestion, except in a diagram where it can refer to the site of a sequence susceptible to action of that enzyme, e.g., a restriction site. Restriction sites may be indicated by the additional use of the word “site”, e.g., “PacI site”. The additional use of the word “fragment”, indicates a linear double-stranded DNA molecule having ends generated by action of the named enzyme (e.g., a restriction fragment). A phrase such as “SmaI-BstEII” fragment” indicates that the restriction fragment was generated by the action of two different enzymes, here SmaI and BstEII, the two ends resulting from the action of different enzymes. Note that the ends will have the characteristics of being either sticky (i.e., having a single strand of protrusion capable of base pairing with a complementary single-stranded oligonucleotide) or blunt (i.e., having no single-stranded protrusion). The specificity of a sticky end will be determined by the sequence of nucleotides comprising the single-stranded protrusion, which in turn is determined by the specificity of the enzyme, which produces it.

All plasmids are designated by a sequence of letters and numbers prefaced by a lower case “p”, for example, pJL36, pJL48, or pJL-TRBO. Certain steps of cloning, selection and vector increase employed strains of E. coli. While the strains used herein have been designated, there are many equivalent strains, available to the public that may be employed. In certain embodiments, the use of a particular microorganism as a substitute for a strain designated herein is a matter of choice available to those of ordinary skill in the art, according to well-known principles.

The following examples are intended to illustrate preferred embodiments of the invention and should not be interpreted to limit the scope of the invention as defined in the claims, unless so specified.

EXAMPLE I

PCR Reactions: Taq DNA polymerase was used for all PCR reactions, using manufacturers' instructions. For production of 5′ phosphorylated PCR products, both forward and reverse direction PCR primers were treated with T4 polynucleotide kinase (New England Biolabs) according to manufacturers' instructions, prior to use in the PCR. Amplified reaction products were column purified with the DNA clean up and concentrator kit (Zymoresearch) to remove unincorporated dNTPs and primers. Purified PCR products were eluted in dH₂O.

Plasmid constructs: The duplicated Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) 35S promoter, a short polylinker containing an XbaI site, and the polyA/terminator sequences from pRTL2 (Carrington and Freed 1990) were cloned as a PstI fragment into PstI cut binary vector pCB301 (Xiang et al. 1999) to create pCB 35SGFP. The NotI site in the pCB301 backbone of pCB 35SGFP was then destroyed by digesting with NotI, treatment with T4 DNA polymerase and dNTPs followed by religation to generate pCB 35SGFP ΔN.

Inverse PCR of pCB 35SGFP ΔN was used to generate a unique StuI restriction site at the 35S promoter transcription start site as described in (Dessens and Lomonossoff 1993). The resulting plasmid was named pJL 22.

The plasmid p3OB-GFP (Shivprasad et al. 1999) was originally obtained from Large Scale Biology Corporation (Vacaville, Calif.). This plasmid contains a T7 driven cDNA of the U1 strain of TMV, an additional viral subgenomic promoter controlling the expression of the GFP reporter gene, and a ribozyme sequence (Turpen et al. 1993) following the end of the viral cDNA. (See FIG. 1).

Assembly of the full length 30B-GFP vector in pJL 22 was accomplished in steps. First, p30BGFPc3 was digested with StuI and PacI, sticky ends were blunted by treatment with T4 DNA polymerase and dNTPs and the plasmid religated to delete TMV nts 1675-5757. This deletion of about 4 kb of internal TMV vector sequence mutant was subjected to PCR with forward primer JAL 228 (GTATTTTTACAACAATTACCAAC) [SEQ ID NO: 1] and reverse direction primer JAL 229 (GGGCCTAGGCTATGACCATGATTACGC) [SEQ ID NO: 2] to generate a 3.6 kb PCR product. Primer JAL 228 annealed to the very 5′ end of TMV. Primer JAL 229 has an AvrII (underlined) site for cloning and annealed in the vector backbone of p3 OBGFP downstream of the ribozyme sequence. The ribozyme sequence was present to process transcripts of p3OBGFP at the precise 3′ end of the TMV RNA. The 3.6 Kb PCR product of primers JAL 228 and 229 was phosphorylated with T4 polynucleotide kinase, digested with AvrII, and then ligated to StuI-XbaI cut pJL 22. The resulting plasmid was called pJL 23. In pJL 23, the TMV 5′ end joined to the transcription start site of the 35S promoter. (See FIG. 1).

A 5.6 kb vector backbone fragment of SinaI-BstEII digested pJL 23 was ligated to a 6.3 kb Smal-BstEII fragment of TMV sequences from p3OBGFP to generate plasmid pJL24 (FIG. 1). This step completed the assembly of the full-length sequence of 30BGFP into a binary vector.

Additional TMV expression vectors, containing convenient cloning sites and the coding sequence for a V5 epitope-His6 tag sequence, were also assembled in binary vectors. The Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) insert in p30BGFP was excised by digestion with PacI and XhoI. Overlapping oligonucleotides JAL 230 (taacggcctagggcggccgc) [SEQ ID NO: 3] and JAL 231 (tcgagcggccgccctaggccgttaat) [SEQ ID NO: 4] were ligated into PacI-XhoI cut p30BGFP. This resulted in the insertion of PacI, AvrII and NotI restriction sites into p30B, in place of the GFP insert. The resulting plasmid was named p30B PAN.

A SmaI-BstEII fragment from p30B PAN was ligated into similarly digested pJL 23 to generate plasmid pJL36. (See FIG. 1, FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B). [SEQ ID NO: 5].

A synthesized ds DNA cassette containing the coding sequence for two SapI sites (gctcttc), the V5 epitope (amino acid sequence GKPIPNPLLGLD) [SEQ ID NO: 6] and a His6 tag sequence [SEQ ID NO: 19] was ligated into PacI-XhoI cut p3OBGFP to generate p30B 43. The DNA cassette-top stand sequence:

[SEQ ID NO: 7] (CGAGGCCAGAAGAGCAACCTTTACGTACTTGCTCTTCAGCTTGAAGGTA AGCCTATCCCTAACCCTCTCCTCGGTCTCGATTCTACGCGTACCGGTCAT CATCACCATCACCATTGAC) had PacII-XhoI compatible ends but did not regenerate the PacI site. The first codon of the V5 epitope sequence is underlined in the DNA cassette sequence provided. A SmaI-BstEII fragment from p30B43 was ligated into similarly digested pJL23 to generate plasmid pJL43. (See FIG. 1 and FIG. 2) [SEQ ID NO: 8].

Construction of a binary vector for expression the p19 gene: Inverse PCR of the template pCB 35SGFP ΔN was used to insert a PacI restriction endonuclease recognition site immediately upstream of the start codon of GFP. GFP was removed from the resulting vector by digestion with PacI and XbaI. The coding sequence for the p19 gene from Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus was amplified from a TBSV cDNA sample with Forward direction oligo JAL 55 (cccttaattaa cATGgaa cgagctata caaggaaac) [SEQ ID NO: 9], ATG start codon in all caps, PacI site underlined, and reverse direction oligo JAL 11 (ccctactagtcTTActcgccttctttttcgaa) [SEQ ID NO: 10], sequence complementary to stop codon in all caps, SpeI site underlined. The PCR product of primer JAL 55 and 11 was digested with PacI and SpeI and ligated into PacI-XbaI cut vector to generate pJL3:p19.

Sticky RICE cloning into pJL43: Preparation of vector: To prepare pJL43 for sticky RICE cloning, plasmid DNA was digested with the restriction endonuclease SapI, treated with calf alkaline intestinal phosphatase and purified with a DNA clean up kit (Zymoresearch). Purified DNA was eluted in dH₂O.

Preparation of PCR products: For sticky RICE cloning of PCR products into SapI cut pJL43 the 5′ end of the forward PCR direction primer can be 5′ GGCCWW. The 5′ end of the reverse direction PCR primer can be 5′ GCWW. In the primer sequences, W=A or T. The T and A residues in the primers can serve as “stop nucleotides” during the sticky RICE reaction, where PCR products were incubated in the presence of a DNA polymerase with 3′ to 5′ exonuclease activity and dATP and dTTP.

The DNA polymerase removed nucleotides from the 3′ ends of each strand until an A or T residue was present in the template stand. This resulted in 5′ overhangs on each end of the PCR products. (See FIG. 2).

Using these steps for primer design, the GFP gene was amplified by the PCR from a pUC-based plasmid with F primer JAL 286 (GGCCT aaa atggctagcaaaggagaag) [SEQ ID NO: 11] and R primer JAL 287 (GCttatttgtagagctcatccat) [SEQ ID NO: 12]. The primer nucleotides that were converted to sticky ends by T4 DNA polymerase are in bold in FIG. 2.

PCR reactions using either non-phosphorylated or 5′ phosphorylated primers were performed. PCR products were purified with a DNA clean up column (Zymoresearch) to remove unincorporated dNTPs and primers and eluted in dH₂O.

Assembly of the Sticky RICE reaction: A three-fold molar excess of phosphorylated GFP gene PCR product was combined with 50 ng SapI cut and phosphatase treated pJL43 DNA in a 10 μl reaction volume composed of: 1× ligase buffer, 0.1 mM (each) dATP/dTTP, 0.25 Units T4 DNA Polymerase, and 400 Units T4 DNA ligase. Enzymes, buffers and unit definitions were all from New England Biolabs. The assembled reaction was incubated at room temperature for 30 minutes.

For purposes of comparison, non-phosphorylated GFP gene PCR products were also cloned using the same reaction conditions except that 0.5 Units T4 polynucleotide kinase were also included in the reaction. The cloning of the GFP gene into pJL43 resulted in plasmid pJL43:GFP.

Transformation of E. coli with Sticky RICE cloning reaction: Two microliters of a sticky RICE ligation reaction were added to 25 μl of chemically competent E. coli (Bioline, A1phaSelect Gold efficiency). Transformation conditions were essentially as per manufacturers' instructions. Transformed cells were plated on LB plates with 50 μg/ml Kanamycin.

Screening plasmids for inserts: Following transformation of the sticky RICE ligations into E. coli, individual colonies were used to inoculate LB broth with 50 μg/ml Kanamycin. Liquid cultures were grown overnight at 37° C., 300 rpm. Plasmids were purified from overnight liquid cultures using a plasmid miniprep kit (Zymoresearch). Because the forward-direction primer used for PCR began with the sequence “GGCCT”, a StuI restriction enzyme recognition site was generated upon sticky RICE joining of PCR product to pJL43. Therefore, plasmids were screened by digestion with StuI and digested DNA separated on 1% agarose gels to identify clones that had inserts.

Agroinfection: Plasmids purified from E. coli cultures were transformed into Agrobacterium GV3101 using the freeze thaw method (Chen et al. 1994). Transformed Agrobacterium were plated on LB plates with 50 μg/ml Kanamycin, 25 μg/ml gentamycin and 10 μg/ml rifampicin for plasmid selection. Individual colonies of Agrobacterium transformed with a binary plasmid were grown to an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0 in liquid LB media supplemented with 10 mM MES pH 5.7, 50 μg/ml Kanamycin, 25 μg/ml gentamycin and 20 μM acetosyringone. Cells were precipitated by centrifugation and resuspended in Agrobacterium induction media (Johansen and Carrington 2001). Cells sat at room temperature in induction media for 2-24 hours before infiltration into N. benthamiana leaves using a 1 ml syringe with no needle. When mixes of Agrobacterium were infiltrated, bacterial cultures were prepared separately in induction media and were combined immediately before infiltration.

Results for Example I

To generate TMV vectors that would infect plants via the agroinfection method, the TMV vector cDNA was placed under the control of a plant functional promoter in a binary vector. The cDNA sequence for the TMV vector ‘30B GFP’ was placed under the control of a 35S promoter in the mini binary vector pCB301. Variants of this plasmid were also constructed in which the GFP insert in the TMV vector was replaced with multiple cloning sites. (See FIG. 1).

The pCB301 plasmid backbone replicates in both E. coli and Agrobacterium and has a kanamycin resistance selectable marker. Plasmids pJL24, -36, and -43 were all initially tested by agroinfiltration and determined to be infectious on Nicotiana benthamiana plants, as determined by the appearance of TMV-induced symptoms of infection about 11 days post infiltration (data not shown). Cloning and expression of genes from pJL43, in particular, was undertaken to demonstrate the utility of these new vectors.

To show that the restriction-enzyme independent cloning strategy “sticky RICE” can be used for cloning PCR products into a TMV vector, a cloning experiment using the vector pJL43 was conducted. The pJL43 vector was prepared for cloning by digestion with the restriction endonuclease SapI and treated with calf intestinal phosphatase. Sticky RICE cloning reactions were set up using either a phosphorylated or non-phosphorylated ca. 800 bp PCR product of the GFP gene. Sticky RICE ligation reactions were performed for 30 minutes at room temperature before transformation into E. coli cells. As shown in Table 1 below, the sticky RICE cloning reaction of this insert yielded considerably more transformants when phosphorylated PCR products were used.

TABLE 1 Cloning Efficiency when using Sticky RICE Method Insert Size, 5′ PO₄ on Enzyme Reaction # % With (bp) insert mix^(a) Time Colonies insert^(b) 770 No Pol/Kin/Lig 30 min 77 7/8 (ca 90%) 770 Yes Pol/Lig 30 min 376 7/8 (ca 90%) ^(a)Poi, 0.25 Units (U) T4 DNA polymerase; Kin, 0.5 U T4 polynucleotide kinase; Lig, 400 U T4 DNA ligase. ^(b)Percentage of clones recovered with insert, as determined by restriction enzyme screening.

To test the cloning efficiency (percentage of transformants containing inserts) of the sticky RICE method, plasmids were purified from eight randomly selected colonies of transformed E. coli. Plasmids were digested with StuI restriction endonuclease and analyzed by electrophoresis on 1% agarose gel followed by staining with ethidium bromide. A StuI site already exists in the TMV cDNA sequence (at TMV nt 1675) and a StuI site was generated during sticky RICE cloning. As a result, plasmids containing an insert will release a StuI fragment of approximately 4 kb. Seven out of 8 plasmids screened contained an insert, for a cloning efficiency of approximately 87.5% (Table 1).

The agroinfection efficiency of the TMV expression vector in pJL43 was also determined. This was tested by transforming the plasmid pJL43:GFP (a pJL43 vector containing the GFP insert) into Agrobacterium GV3101. Cultures of Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP were suspended in induction media at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0. Leaves of 4-6 week old Nicotiana benthamiana plants were infiltrated with 100-200 microliters of induced Agrobacterium culture. Three days post-infiltration GFP expressing cells were seen using a hand-held UV lamp. (See FIGS. 3A and 3B).

Each GFP expressing cluster of cells represents a single incident of the GFP-expressing TMV vector RNA being “launched” from the transcribed T-DNA, and the TMV:GFP vector moving from the initially infected cell to adjacent cells. Hundreds of GFP spots were detected per 10 cm² of infiltrated leaf. (See FIG. 3A).

By about 7 days post infiltration signs of systemic infection by the TMV:GFP virus were detectable (data not shown). By 11 days post agroinfection, the systemic infection was well established, and very little non-GFP expressing systemic plant tissue was observed. (See FIG. 3B).

Although infiltration of Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP cultures alone into N. benthamiana plants always led to systemic infection of plants by TMV:GFP, additional experiments were conducted to determine if agroinfection efficiency could be improved. Additional experiments were conducted to determine if RNA silencing suppressor proteins could increase the agroinfection efficiency of the TMV clones. To test this, N. benthamiana plants were infiltrated with a 1:1 mixture of induced Agrobacterium/pJL3:p19 and pJL43:GFP cultures (each at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0). The plasmid pJL3:p19 contains a T-DNA sequence of the 35S promoter driving the transcription of the RNA silencing suppressor p19 gene from tomato bushy stunt virus. When plants were infiltrated with a mixture of these two Agrobacterium cultures, a dramatic increase in the number of GFP expressing cells was observed. By three days post infiltration it appeared that nearly 100% of the cells in the infiltrated tissue were infected with TMV:GFP. (See FIG. 3A).

To further demonstrate the effect of p19 on agroinfection efficiency, plants were infiltrated with a 50-fold dilution of Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP culture (diluted from the OD₆₀₀ of 1.0), with and without co-infiltration of an Agrobacterium/pJL3:p19 culture. (See FIG. 3A).

The results demonstrated that leaves infiltrated with a 1:50 dilution of Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP culture generated only about 80 GFP expressing foci by 3 days post infiltration (DPI). In contrast, when the diluted Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP culture was co-infiltrated with Agrobacterium/pJL3:p19 culture nearly 100% of the cells in the infiltrated zone expressed GFP by 3 DPI.

Systemic symptoms of TMV:GFP infection began appearing about 7-8 days post agroinfection with pJL43:GFP. By co-introducing a gene for the RNA silencing suppressor gene p19 along with the TMV vector T-DNA during agroinfection, substantially complete infection of the local (infiltrated) tissue was achieved. Therefore, experiments were conducted to determine if the levels of recombinant protein generated in this infiltrated tissue were comparable to that of the systemically infected tissue. Protein extracts were prepared from plant tissue infiltrated with Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP and /pJL3:p19 cultures (at 5 DPI), as well as from plant tissue systemically infected with the TMV:GFP construct from pJL43:GFP (14 DPI). Protein extracts were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and Coomassie blue staining. The levels of recombinant GFP protein were comparable in both samples. See FIGS. 4A and 4B which demonstrate that significant levels of recombinant protein can be produced from TMV vectors in the Agroinfiltrated tissue itself. Furthermore recombinant protein can be detected in infiltrated tissue many days before TMV:GFP begins systemic infection.

Discussion of Example I

There is described herein a method of agroinfection to deliver TMV-based expression vectors to plants. A 35S promoter driven version of the TMV expression vector ‘30B GFP’ was re-constructed in the T-DNA region of a binary vector. During construction, care was taken to ensure that the promoter transcription start site and TMV cDNA junction was precise. The binary plasmids constructed all replicated in E. coli and Agrobacterium. Leaf tissue infiltrated with Agrobacterium cultures containing the new 35S driven TMV vector developed hundreds of GFP expressing foci per cm² of infiltrated tissue by 3 DPI. (See FIG. 3). Approximately 7-8 DPI GFP signal began appearing in upper (non-infiltrated) leaves as a result of systemic infection by the TMV:GFP vector.

When the 35S driven TMV vector T-DNA was introduced into plant cells along with a T-DNA for the RNA silencing suppressor protein p19 gene, a dramatic increase in agroinfection efficiency was observed. (See FIG. 3).

Nearly all of the cells in the infiltrated tissue zone expressed GFP by three days post infiltration. The infection of infiltrated tissue was so efficient that the levels of recombinant GFP in infiltrated or TMV:GFP systemically-infected tissue were comparable. (See FIG. 4).

The infection method described herein makes it possible to screen infiltrated tissue for recombinant protein production. When viral vectors (such as TMV-based vectors) move systemically in plants there is a tendency for foreign inserted genes to be lost from the viral RNA by recombination. As a result, there can be plants that become partially- or totally-systemically infected with a TMV vector that has lost the foreign insert. This “insert-loss” phenomenon is influenced by insert length and insert sequence in ways that are not completely understood.

As now described herein, the ability to infect nearly every plant cell with a TMV vector by agroinfiltration now makes it possible to produce significant amounts of recombinant proteins in plants without the same concerns of insert stability in the vector. Also, systemic infection of plants after inoculation with a viral vector generally takes about 7 or more days. The high efficiency of agroinfection described herein makes it possible to harvest recombinant protein several days before systemic symptoms of virus infection even begin to appear.

The efficiency of agroinfection, obtained by co-introducing an RNA silencing suppressor, is now believed by the inventor herein to be comparable to the agroinfection efficiencies recently reported by Marillonnet et al. (Marillonnet et al. 2005). In their approach to improving agroinfection of a TMV vector, they both removed potential cryptic introns (by making nearly 100 silent mutations to the virus cDNA sequence) and inserted up to 19 introns into the viral cDNA. The final optimized construct generated through their strategy had multiple silent mutations and 16 introns inserted into the viral cDNA. They estimated this construct was 1000 times more efficient in agroinfection of N. benthamiana plants than their starting vector. Through agroinfection they were able to infect greater than 90% of the cells in the infiltrated leaf with a GFP expressing TMV.

To estimate the efficiency of agroinfection obtained in the experiments described herein, infiltrated tissue was observed under a fluorescent microscope and UV illumination. Even when leaves were infiltrated with a 1:1 mixture of Agrobacterium/pJL3:p19 (at OD₆₀₀ 1.0) and Agrobacterium/pJL43:GFP (diluted 1:50 from OD₆₀₀ 1.0), nearly 100% of the cells in the infiltrated tissue expressed GFP at 4 DPI. It is now believed that the expression of p19 in infiltrated cells dramatically improved agroinfection efficiency of the new TMV vector, obviating the need to destroy cryptic introns or introduce introns into the constructs.

Co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor was recently reported to increase the agroinfection efficiency of a 35S driven Beet Yellows Virus (BYV) cDNA. As now shown herein, the RNA silencing suppressors increase agroinfection efficiency of 35S driven RNA virus cDNAs is not restricted to BYV. The enhancement of agroinfection efficiency by RNA silencing suppressors is now believed by the inventor herein to be a general phenomenon. One mechanistic explanation for this enhancement that is that the TMV cDNA transcribed in the plant cell nucleus is often spliced at cryptic introns. This is supported by the observation that removal of cryptic introns from TMV cDNA could improve the agroinfection efficiency of TMV vector (Marillonnet et al. 2004; Marillonnet et al. 2005). As a result of splicing in the nucleus TMV-derived RNA that is not capable of self-replication is often exported into the cytoplasm. This does not initiate self-replication, but instead is processed by cellular RNAses and becomes a source of small RNAs that become incorporated into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) (Filipowicz 2005). These small RNAs would serve as guide RNAs to target the RISC complex to specifically degrade TMV RNA. This would result in the RISC complex rapidly degrading other transcription products of the TMV cDNA (including the occasional transcript that is not spliced) that enter the cytoplasm. As a result of this activity, agroinfection efficiency of an RNA virus is limited. In contrast, when a potent suppressor of RNA silencing is co-expressed in cells that are transformed with a 35S driven TMV cDNA, the silencing suppressor interferes with RNA degradation by RISC. As a result when non-spliced viral transcripts do enter the cytoplasm from the nucleus they are not immediately degraded but instead have a greater opportunity to be translated and initiate self-replication.

Based on the results of agroinfection by 35S driven BYV and TMV constructs it is believed by the inventor herein that co-infiltration of an RNA silencing suppressor gene improves the agroinfection efficiency of other RNA virus cDNAs as well. This method, as described herein, is a more efficient method to improve agroinfection efficiency of viral cDNAs as opposed to the removal of cryptic introns and introduction of introns into viral sequences.

To facilitate the cloning of genes into the agroinfiltration-compatible TMV vector, the GFP gene in pJL24 was replaced with useful multiple cloning sites to generate pJL36 and pJL43. Plasmid pJL36 has three unique restriction enzyme sites for cloning, two 8-base restriction enzyme recognition sites (PacI and NotI) and the 6-base AvrII site. The sticky ends generated by AvrII digestion are compatible with sticky ends generated by digestion of DNA with restriction enzymes, NheI, SpeI or XbaI, providing for flexibility in cloning. This vector can be used for standard restriction endonuclease based cloning approaches, and can be propagated in either E. coli or Agrobacterium.

The multiple cloning site in pJL43 was created because there can be occasions when a DNA sequence to be cloned is not compatible with the PacI-AvrII and NotI restriction site choices provided in pJL36. Therefore, to provide other cloning options, an alternative, directional one-step cloning method, called “sticky RICE cloning” was also developed. In this method, two SapI restriction endonuclease recognition sites were inserted into the TMV vector cDNA sequence. The context of the SapI sites was specially designed so that 5′ single stranded overhangs would be maintained in the SapI cut vector in the presence of T4 DNA polymerase and dATP and dTTP. (See FIG. 2).

PCR products were amplified using forward and reverse primers that had GC rich 5′ ends. Forward primers began with 5′ GGCCWW and reverse direction primers began with the sequence 5′ GCWW (W=A or T). PCR products amplified with primers designed in this manner were converted to DNAs with 5′ single stranded G/C rich overhangs by the action of T4 DNA polymerase in the presence of dATP and dTTP. The to 5′ exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase removed 3′ nucleotides from DNA ends until counteracted by the 5′ to 3′ DNA synthesis activity. Since only dATP and dTTP were present in the reaction, the counteracting DNA synthesis activity only occurred when a T or A residue was reached in the template strand. In this manner, 5′ GC rich single stranded overhangs of defined length and sequence were generated on the PCR product.

Because of the special design of both the vector and PCR products to be cloned, the generation of sticky ends on PCR products, annealing of vector, and insert and ligation were all accomplished in a single reaction using a mixture of DNA polymerase, kinase and ligase enzyme activities. This greatly simplifies the cloning process, obviating the need to digest PCR products with specially selected restriction enzymes prior to cloning. In fact, using the sticky RICE cloning method it is now possible to directionally ligate a PCR product into these specially designed TMV expression vectors in 30 minutes, less time than it takes to do the typical restriction enzyme digest. Because the sticky RICE method does not rely on restriction digestion of PCR products to be cloned, it is now possible to reliably clone PCR products regardless of the presence or absence of restriction enzyme sites within the DNA. The sticky RICE method is especially appealing when undergoing high-throughput cloning experiments or when cloning DNA sequences whose entire sequence is not known.

There are a number of directional cloning techniques currently available, including methods using topoisomerase (Shuman 1994) or recombinase enzymes (Buchholz and Bishop 2001; Walhout et al. 2000) (Gateway® system, Invitrogen) and ligase independent cloning (Aslanidis and de Jong 1990). The sticky RICE method described herein uses commonly available enzymes and is significantly less expensive to perform than these commercially marketed directional cloning methods. In addition, the primer design for sticky RICE only requires that relatively short non-template sequences be added to primers. Also, the LIC method requires 12 non-template encoded nts be added to each PCR primer. Recombinase based methods like the Gateway® system (Walhout et al. 2000) and cre-lox (Buchholz and Bishop 2001; Liu et al. 1998; Liu et al. 2000) systems join DNAs that share specific 26 or 34 nt long recombinase recognition sequences, respectively. These sequences are additional (non-template) sequences that must be added to PCR products to be cloned. These specific recombination sequences must also be inserted into the vector. This can be a limitation because there may be instances when it is not desirable to have such long sequences inserted into a cloning and expression vector. In contrast, the coding sequence requirements for sticky RICE are not as restrictive.

The sticky RICE cloning method is also not limited to just the TMV expression vectors. It is believed by the inventor herein that nearly any cloning vector of interest can be converted to being “sticky RICE compatible” using the method described herein. For example, a number of 5′ overhang sequences and lengths can be used, depending upon the users' own design. In addition, A/T rich 5′ overhangs can be used instead of G/C rich 5′ overhangs by properly designing vector and PCR primers and using dGTP and dCTP to limit the 3′ to 5′ exonuclease activity of T4 DNA polymerase.

EXAMPLE II

Plasmids constructed: Agroinfection-compatible TMV expression vector (pJL24, FIG. 8) that expressed all of the TMV genes in addition to a foreign, inserted gene was constructed. Since moving the foreign gene insertion site closer to the 3′ end of TMV RNA led to an increase in expression of the foreign insert, deletion of the virus CP gene sequence from the plasmid pJL24, in essence, moves the foreign insert closer to the 3′ end of the viral RNA. As such, deletion of the CP gene sequence from pJL24 increased the level of foreign gene expression from a TMV replicon. The CP deletion replicon was named TRBO for TMV RNA Based Overexpression vector. Initially, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene (Chalfie et al. 1994; Chalfie 1995; Crameri et al. 1996) was used to demonstrate the utility of the agroinfection-compatible TRBO replicon and to compare it to alternate non-viral or full-length TMV-transient expression systems. Maps of the T-DNA regions of various modified Ti (binary) plasmids used in this example are shown in FIG. 8.

For example, see FIG. 6 which shows pJL48 (pJL-TRBO)-GFP 35S driven TMV in binary vector with deletion of the CP gene. Kan resistance marker and T-DNA borders not shown in map. Plasmid replicates in either Agro or E. coli. Construction: GFPc3 gene (PCR product of oligos JAL 12 and 13). Digested with PacI-SpeI. Ligated into PacI-AvrII cut pJL48 (pJL-TRBO). Use: infiltrate Agrobacterium containing this plasmid into N. benth plants to produce GFP.

FIG. 7A shows the plasmid maps of pJL22 U1 3′, pJL36, and pJL48 (pJL-TRBO)=35S driven TMV expression vector in binary vector backbone. Clone is lacking a CP orf and is capable of high-level expression of protein in plants. T-DNA borders not shown in map. Construction: vector backbone=pJL36 NotI-SfiI cut. Insert=1.5 kb NotI-SfiI fragment of pJL 22 U1 3′. FIG. 7B shows the DNA Sequence of pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) expression vector [SEQ IDNO: 13]. Nt 1=first nt of TMV U1 strain. PacI (TTAATTAA), AvrII (CCTAGG) and NotI (gcggccgc) sites for cloning. After NotI site, U1 nts 6177 to 6396 (number according to Goelet et al 1982, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.) Vector has No CP gene, and is composed only of TMV U1 strain sequences, and other (non-viral) sequences for cloning, etc.

Agroinfection with the TRBO replicon is very efficient: Experiments with the TMV vector contained in pJL24 determined that ectopic co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor gene (such as the p19 gene from tomato bushy stunt virus) was useful to obtain the highest agroinfection rates for this vector. An example of this can be seen in FIG. 9. The area of the leaf in region “A” of FIG. 9 was infiltrated with a suspension of A. tumefaciens cells carrying pJL-24 (A. t./pJL24). When the leaf was viewed under UV illumination (to visualize expression of GFP from the TMV vector launched from the T-DNA) many discreet GFP-positive foci could be seen with the unaided eye. However, a significant portion of the infiltrated leaf did not express detectable levels of GFP. In contrast, when A.t./pJL24 cells were mixed with a suspension of A.t./pJL3:P19 cells and the mixture infiltrated into leaf tissue, GFP expression in the infiltrated zone appeared confluent (area B, FIG. 9).

Very few, if any, non-GFP expressing cells were observed even when examined under a fluorescent microscope (data not shown). Because the most efficient agroinfection rate with pJL24 required co-introduction of a 35S driven P19 gene, experiments were conducted to determine if co-expression of the RNA silencing suppressor protein P19 was also needed to obtain a high agroinfection rate with the vector TRBO-G.

To test this, A.t./pJL-TRBO-G cells alone (FIG. 9C) or mixed with A.t./pJL3:P19 cells (see FIG. 9D) were infiltrated into separate areas of a leaf. Surprisingly, the agroinfection rate of the TRBO-G vector in the two treatments appeared identical. When infiltrated leaves were viewed under a hand-held long wave UV lamp at 4 days post infiltration (DPI), all cells in the area of the leaf infiltrated with A.t./pJL-TRBO-G or A.t./pJL-TRBO-G+A.t/pJL3:P19 cells appeared to be expressing GFP (see FIGS. 9C and 9D). In addition, the GFP signal from pJL-TRBO-G replicon was noticeably brighter than the GFP signal from pJL24. These results were observed in dozens of repetitions of this experiment.

Since the TRBO vector had a higher rate of agroinfection than the vector JL24, it was then determined whether dilute suspensions of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G alone could be used to efficiently inoculate leaves. Half leaves of N. benthamiana plants were infiltrated with various dilutions of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G cells. Leaves were observed daily with a hand-held UV lamp to monitor the progress and extent of agroinfection, as demonstrated by GFP expression from the TRBO replicon. Results are shown in FIG. 10A.

Even in leaves infiltrated with A. tumefaciens cells diluted 1:300 from a starting OD₆₀₀ of 1.0, nearly all cells of the infiltrated zone expressed GFP by 4 DPI, as determined by visual inspection of infiltrated leaves under a hand-held UV lamp. Thus, plants can be efficiently agroinoculated with the TRBO replicon over a wide range of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G cell densities.

To further demonstrate that the agroinfection rate of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G is higher than that of A.t./pJL24, a 1:100 dilution (from a starting OD₆₀₀ of 1.0) of A.t./pJL24 cells was infiltrated into N. benthamiana leaves with or without A.t./pJL3:p19 cells. The image in FIG. 10B is a photograph (3DPI) of an infiltrated leaf under UV illumination. Again, co-infiltration of A.t./pJL24 and A.t./pJL3:p19 cell suspensions dramatically increased the agroinfection rate of the JL24 vector. The amount of GFP-expressing tissue in this treatment appeared similar visually to the amount of GFP-expressing tissue (at 3DPI) in leaves infiltrated with 1:150 or 1:300 dilutions of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G cells. (See FIG. 10A). This further demonstrates that the agroinfection rate of pJL-TRBO is significantly higher than that of pJL24 and that even diluted A. t./pJL-TRBO-G cell suspensions can be used to efficiently inoculate leaves in the absence of an ectopically expressed RNA silencing suppressor such as p19.

The TRBO expression vector did not move systemically in plants: Since the TMV CP is required for systemic movement (Donson et al., 1991), the JL-TRBO replicon does not move systemically in plants. To confirm, N. benthamiana plants were inoculated with the GFP-expressing vectors JL24 or JL-TRBO-G by agroinfection. Plants were observed under UV illumination to visualize GFP expression from the vectors. Results are shown in FIG. 11.

The vector JL24 expressed GFP plus all of the genes of TMV, including the CP, and moved systemically (to non-inoculated leaves) at about 5-6 DPI. By about 9-10 DPI, the majority of the tissue in systemically infected leaves (as viewed with the unaided eye under UV illumination) appeared to be expressing GFP. In contrast, the TRBO replicon did not move systemically in plants, even up to 14 DPI (data not shown). The JL-TRBO-G replicon was never observed to move systemically in any of the dozens of agroinoculated plants in any experiments.

TRBO vector expressed very high levels of recombinant protein: To compare the amounts of GFP produced from the TMV vectors JL24 and JL-TRBO-G, or from the transient co-expression of 35S:GFP and the RNA silencing suppressor protein p19, a plate based GFP fluorescence assay was used. Purified His6-tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]), purified from TRBO-G infected plants by metal affinity chromatography, was used as a standard. Leaves of N. benthamiana were infiltrated with one of the following A. tumefaciens (A.t.) cell suspensions: A.t./p35S:GFP+A.t./pJL3:P19 (each at an OD₆₀₀ of 0.5); A.t./pJL24+A.t./pJL3:P19 (each at an OD₆₀₀ of 0.5); or A.t./pJL-TRBO-G (OD 0.02). Protein samples from infiltrated tissues were prepared at 5 or 6 DPI. Dilutions of protein extracts and purified His6-tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) were transferred into wells of a 96 well plate (in triplicate). GFP fluorescence levels were recorded on a Perkin Elmer HTS 7000 BioAssay plate reader. The results are shown in FIG. 12.

The JL-TRBO-G replicon expressed up to 100 times more GFP than was obtained from co-introducing T-DNAs for 35S:GFP and 35S:p19 into plants, and 2-3 times more GFP than the TMV vector pJL24 Similar results were also obtained from an ELISA assay, using anti-GFP specific antibodies (data not shown). In multiple repetitions of this experiment, the relative expression levels from the different expression systems were always consistent. The JL-TRBO replicon always expressed significantly more GFP than the other transient expression systems examined.

Temporal analysis of protein expression from TRBO: After the JL-TRBO-G T-DNA is transcribed, the RNA initiates self-replication and gene expression in the cytoplasm. Since the JL-TRBO-G replicon expressed the TMV movement protein, it moved cell-to-cell in the inoculated (infiltrated) leaf. The result of this movement is that individual GFP-expressing foci on a leaf enlarge as the virus moves cell-to-cell over time. This can be observed by comparing the sizes of individual GFP-expressing cell foci at 3DPI and 4DPI images (in FIG. 10A) of leaves infiltrated with 1:500 dilutions of A.t./pJL-TRBO-G. When leaves were infiltrated with higher concentrations of A. t./pJL-TRBO-G cells, the large number of GFP-expressing cells in the infiltrated zone made it difficult to identify an individual foci. Regardless, as replication and cell-to-cell movement of the replicon progressed the amount of GFP expressed in the infiltrated leaf increased. After a certain point the steady-state level of GFP in infiltrated tissue appeared to reach a plateau.

To demonstrate the temporal nature of protein expression from the JL-TRBO-G replicon, extracts were prepared from inoculated tissue at various DPI. Total soluble protein extracts were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and Coomassie blue staining. (See FIG. 13). JL-TRBO-expressed GFP accumulation appeared to reach a maximum at 4-6 DPI, consistent with the increase in GFP activity that is observed by viewing infiltrated leaves under UV illumination.

Expression of Various Proteins from JL-TRBO Replicon:

The high efficiency agroinfection of 35S:TMV allows whole leaves to be agroinfected with a gene of interest (GOI) where the whole leaf can be agroinfected with the TMV:GOI. Protein is recovered from the inoculated leaves, not from systemically infected leaves.

The CP gene is removed from the virus when there is no need for the virus to systemically move. The effect of removing the CP gene from the TMV-based expression vector moves the gene of interest (GOI) toward the 3′ end of the genome. The gene closest to the 3′ end is more highly expressed. The result is that the TMV vector over-expressed the GOI.

To demonstrate the utility of the JL-TRBO expression replicon, genes of various sizes were cloned into the pJL-TRBO plasmid. N. benthamiana plants were infiltrated with suspensions of A. tumefaciens cells transformed with the various plasmids. Several (4 to 6) days post infiltration, total soluble protein extracts were prepared from agroinfiltrated tissue. Extracts were separated on SDS-PAGE gels and stained with Coomassie blue. (See FIG. 14A).

Since some of the recombinant proteins expressed from JL-TRBO had C-terminal amino acid tags of His6(HA)₂ (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) (where HA is the influenza hemagglutinin peptide YPYDVPDYA) [SEQ ID NO: 20]), some extracts (see FIG. 14B) were also subjected to immunoblot analysis using anti-HA primary antibodies (Invitrogen). The results of this analysis demonstrate that different recombinant proteins accumulate to different levels in plants. Some (e.g. Adenosine kinase) accumulate to greater levels than GFP. Other proteins accumulate at lower levels. The results also demonstrate that JL-TRBO can be used to express His-6 (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) and epitope tagged recombinant proteins. Although several of the lesser-accumulating proteins had His6(HA)₂ C-terminal amino acid tags (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]), it is not proposed that this peptide tag was solely responsible for the lower accumulation levels. However, this tag may have an affect on the final level of accumulation on some proteins. For example His6(HA)₂-tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) (FIG. 14A, lane 3) did accumulate to slightly lower levels than that of non-tagged GFP.

Discussion of Example II

The construction of a full-length TMV vector that can be efficiently delivered to cells by agroinfection included a 35S driven RNA silencing suppressor gene that was co-introduced at the same time. In this example, a coat protein deletion (ΔCP) mutant of that 35S-driven TMV vector was described. This vector was efficiently delivered to cells by agroinfection irrespective of the co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor protein. This data demonstrated that the sequences in or around the TMV CP gene had a significant, negative impact on agroinfection efficiency. The negative effect of the TMV CP sequence could be at least partially neutralized by ectopic expression of a suppressor of RNA silencing. Therefore, it is believed by the inventor herein that the RNA sequence of the TMV CP subgenomic promoter and CP open reading frame can be a potent inducer of RNA silencing.

The CP deletion vector, JL-TRBO, described in this example had several advantages over a full length TMV vector. The JL-TRBO vector had a dramatically higher agroinfection rate. As such, plants can be efficiently inoculated even with very dilute suspensions of A. tumefaciens. This can be important since there are some plant species which demonstrate a hypersensitive response when infiltrated with high density A. tumefaciens suspensions. Being able to agroinoculate plants with lower density cell suspensions reduces the chances of such ‘negative responses’ of the plant to A. tumefaciens.

Also, efficient inoculation with low density A. tumefaciens cell suspensions can make it easier to obtain sufficient inoculum for infiltration of multiple leaves orplants. Another useful feature of JL-TRBO was its remarkably high protein expression rate: for some proteins gram quantities of recombinant protein were produced per kilogram of infiltrated tissue. This is comparable to the highest recombinant protein expression levels ever reported for plants (Marillonnet et al., 2005). High protein expression levels make it easier to obtain useful quantities of recombinant protein from less tissue in less time.

One of the challenges of working with plant virus expression vectors is the tendency of vector deletion mutants to appear in systemically infected portions of inoculated plants (Dawson et al., 1989; Beck and Dawson, 1990; Lehto and Dawson, 1990; Shivprasad et al., 1999). Although the phenomenon is not completely understood, it was demonstrated that a recombinant plant virus with an insert moved more slowly than the same virus without an insert (Toth et al., 2002). This was especially true for systemic movement of recombinant viruses (Toth et al., 2002). Therefore, there is a selective advantage in movement for viruses that have lost their insert. As a result, a plant can be inoculated with a virus containing an insert yet when the virus appears in systemic (non-inoculated) tissue, the insert may have been lost by recombination. The ability to synchronously inoculate large numbers of cells in a leaf and purify proteins from the inoculated leaf itself reduces the chances for insert loss from the virus. Therefore, the pJL-TRBO vector described herein provides a more reliable expression vector because insert loss is less likely to be a problem than with the full-length TMV vectors.

Another advantage of the TRBO vector is that it does not produce TMV CP. Because the TMV CP is required for systemic movement, TRBO is not capable of systemic movement in plants. It also will not produce virions in plants. This has definitive bio-containment and protein purification advantages. Firstly, this feature reduces the chances for inadvertent plant-to-plant movement of the vector. Secondly, when extracting proteins from pJL-TRBO infected tissue, the recombinant protein of interest does not need to be purified away from virion particles. If one is using viral vector that does generate virus particles (such as JL24), efforts must be taken to both separate virion particles from the recombinant protein of interest and also to inactivate virus particles in any extracts of infected plant materials. These issues are not a concern with the pJL-TRBO vector because it does not generate virus particles.

The expression levels and agroinfectivity on N. benthamiana obtained with JL-TRBO are comparable to those of TMV-based vectors reported by others (Gleba et al., 2005; Marillonnet et al., 2005). These reports have described the construction of a TMV-(CP deletion) based replicon that could also express GFP at levels higher than 1 mg/gm (>1 gm/kg) infected tissue. However, in order to obtain a clone that was very efficiently delivered by agroinfection, those researchers performed extensive modification of the TMV sequence (Marillonnet et al., 2005). Putative cryptic introns in the TMV cDNA were destroyed by point mutagensis and multiple plant introns were inserted to various regions of the TMV cDNA. In the final optimized construct, over 100 point mutations and 16 introns were inserted into the TMV cDNA. These modifications resulted in a significant increase in agroinfection efficiency of the clone, but also increased the size of the modified Agrobacterium Ti plasmid containing the TMV vector. As plasmid size increases, cloning additional sequences into the plasmid becomes more challenging.

In contrast, the pJL-TRBO vector is less than 11 Kb, smaller than the optimized vector described by Marillonnet et al. (Marillonnet et al., 2005), and is therefore easier to clone into desired plants and the like. Also, since not every protein is expressed from a viral vector, it cannot be accumulated to very high levels. The results in FIGS. 14A and 14B demonstrate that some proteins accumulate to levels greater than GFP. Other proteins may then accumulate to levels significantly lower than GFP since there are, no doubt, effects of protein stability that may be involved in the final accumulation level of any protein. Regardless, the high expression capacity of the JL-TRBO expression vector provides an excellent opportunity for detectable levels of recombinant protein to be produced in plants in a very short time frame.

The TMV over-expression vector JL-TRBO, which lacks the TMV CP gene, has several useful advantages over a TMV vector that does express the CP gene. These advantages include: higher agroinfection rates, easier scale up, higher protein expression levels, and bio-containment/protein purification advantages. The TRBO expression vector can express proteins at up to 100 times the level of the routinely used ‘enhanced’ Agrobacterium transient expression method of co-introduction of a gene of interest and the p19 RNA silencing suppressor gene into plants.

In addition, the pJL-TRBO vector is very useful for rapidly expressing recombinant proteins in plants. The ease-of-use of this expression vector system will make it accessible to a wide range of researchers in plant biology and biotechnology.

Materials and Methods for Example II

Plasmid construction: pJL24 is a 35S promoter driven version of the TMV expression vector “30B-GFP”(Shivprasad et al., 1999). The TMV vector 30B is a chimera of sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of TMV (The CP subgenomic promoter, CP ORF and 3′ non-translated sequences from the U5 strain of TMV, the remainder from the U1 strain). pJL-TRBO was constructed from pJL24 and a full length cDNA clone of TMV U1 using standard cloning procedures.

The final sequence of TRBO is as follows: TMV U1 nts 1-5756 [SEQ ID NO: 13] (with the CP start codon, nts 5712-5714 [SEQ ID NO: 15], mutated from ATG to AGA): the polylinker sequence, ttaattaacggcctagggcggccgc [SEQ ID NO: 16]; then U1 nts 6177 to 6395 [SEQ ID NO: 17]. Numbering of U1 nt sequences was as according to Dawson et al (Dawson et al., 1986). Immediately following U1 nt 6395 are a KpnI site, a ribozyme cDNA sequence (Turpen et al., 1993) and CaMV 3′ polyA signal/transcription terminator (Carrington and Freed, 1990). All plasmids had the mini binary plasmid pCB301 (Xiang et al., 1999) as their backbone, which can replicate in both E. coli and A. tumefaciens.

In certain non-limiting examples, PCR products of the following genes were cloned into PacI-AvrII digested pJL-TRBO:

a) Green Fluorescent protein (GFP) (Crameri et al., 1996);

b) GFP tagged at its C-terminus with His6(HA)2 (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]);

c) A. thaliana adenosine kinase (Wang et al., 2003);

d) 10th domain of human fibronectin (Baron et al., 1991);

e) Phytopthora infestans avirulence protein Avr3 a (Armstrong et al., 2005); tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) 69 kDa proteinase (Tian et al., 2007); L. esculentum cysteine proteinase RCR-3 (Dixon et al., 2000; Tian et al., 2007). The adenosine kinase gene was received from David Bisaro. The fibronectin domain coding sequence was chemically synthesized. The Phytophthora and tomato genes were received from Sophie Kamoun.

Agroinfection: Binary plasmids purified from E. coli cultures were transformed into A. tumefaciens GV3101 using the freeze thaw method (Chen et al., 1994). Transformed A. tumefaciens were plated on LB plates with 50 μg/ml Kanamycin, 25 μg/ml gentamycin and 10 μg/ml rifampicin for plasmid selection. Binary plasmid transformed A. tumefaciens cells were grown (12 to 24 hours) at 25-28° C., 225 rpm in LB media (Sambrook et al., 1989) supplemented with 10 mM MES pH 5.7, 50 μg/ml Kanamycin, 25 μg/ml gentamycin. Overnight cultures were diluted 1:10 in the same media supplemented with 20 μM acetosyringone and grown as above to an OD₆₀₀ of about 1.0. Cells were collected by centrifugation and resuspended in induction media (Johansen and Carrington, 2001), 10 mM MES, pH 5.7, 10 mM MgCl₂, 200 μM acetosyringone, at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0. Cells sat at room temperature in induction media for 2 to 24 hours before infiltration into the abaxial surface of N. benthamiana leaves using a 1 ml syringe with no needle. When mixed cultures of A. tumefaciens were infiltrated into plants, bacterial cultures were prepared separately in induction media and were combined immediately before infiltration.

Plants and photography: Nicotiana benthamiana plants were grown in a growth chamber with 18 hour photoperiod, 25-27° C. For GFP photography, plants were photographed with a Cannon G6 digital camera equipped with a Tiffen Deep Yellow 15 filter. Plants were illuminated with a hand-held long wave UV lamp (UVP Blak-Ray Model UVL-56).

SDS-PAGE: Total soluble protein extracts of agro-infiltrated plant tissue were prepared by freezing tissue samples in liquid nitrogen and then grinding in the presence of 4 volumes (per gram fresh weight) 50 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 0.1% Tween-20, 0.1% beta-mercaptoethanol (BMe). Extracts were clarified by centrifuging for 15 minutes at 12-15K×g at 4° C. Clarified supernatant was stored at −20° C. Equal volumes of clarified extract of each treatment were combined with SDS-PAGE loading dye (Laemmli, 1970) and analyzed on 4-20% SDS-PAGE gels. Gels were stained with Coomassie blue to visualize proteins.

GFP Assay: Samples of clarified plant protein extracts, prepared as described herein, (or standards of purified GFP) were diluted in 50 mM Carbonate buffer (pH 9.6). Protein samples in wells of a 96-well plate (Costar, white polystyrene) were read on a Perkin-Elmer HTS 7000 BioAssay Reader with 405 nm excitation/535 emission filters.

Purification of His6Tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]): His6 C-terminally tagged GFP (6× His tag disclosed as [SEQ ID NO: 19]) was expressed in plants from a TRBO replicon by agroinfection. Plant tissue was collected at 5 DPI and ground in 4 volumes extraction buffer (50 mM phosphate pH 8.0, 10 mM Tris, pH 8.0, 500 mM NaCl, 0.1% Tween-20, 0.1% NP-40, 0.1% BMe, 1 mM PMSF). Extract was filtered thru cheesecloth then centrifuged at 12,000×g, 4° C. for 20 minutes. Clarified supernatant was then passed through a −20° C. freeze thaw cycle. After thawing, samples were centrifuged (as before) Immidazole was added to supernatant for a final concentration of 10 mM. One-half ml of washed Ni-NTA agarose beads (Qiagen) were added to 8-10 mls of extract and incubated at 4° C. on rocker for 1-2 hours. Column was washed in 20-25 column volumes wash buffer (50 mM phosphate pH 8.0, 500 mM NaCl, 0.1% Tween-20, 20 mM immidazole). Bound His-tagged GFP was eluted with 250 mM immidazole in 1× PBS. Eluted fraction was dialized twice (6 hours to overnight) into 1000 volumes 1× PBS (11.9 mM phosphate, pH 7.4, 137 mM NaCl, 2.7 mM KC1) at 4° C. Protein concentration was estimated using BCA assay (Pierce) and bovine serum albumin as a standard.

EXAMPLE III

RNA silencing suppressors increase the agroinfection frequency of a 35S driven TMV-GFP vector. In this experiment, the approach was to co-introduce T-DNAs for 35S:TMV-GFP and 35S:p19 into plant cell. (p19 is a potent RNA silencing suppressor from tomato bushy stunt virus). The procedure includes mixing agro cultures containing binary plasmids, infiltrating, and observing under UV light.

The results, as shown in FIGS. 15A and 15B, shows complete infection by 4DPI where nearly every cell in the infiltrated zone is infected by the TMV-GFP construct. FIGS. 16A-16C show leaves under fluorescent microscope (low power). The SDS PAGE shown in FIG. 16C demonstrates that GFP is detectable by SDS PAGE in crude plant extracts.

EXAMPLE IV

TRBO charging protein expression: The TMV CP gene affects agroinfection frequency, and the p19 enhances agroinfection rate of 35S:TMV-GFP. It now shown that the agroinfection of 35S:TMV GFP ΔCP is efficient without p19. See FIGS. 17A and 17B.

Also, dilute cultures of Agro/35:TMV-GFP ΔCP can infect plants. FIG. 18 shows N. benthamiana leaves infiltrated with 1:50 dilution of Agro/35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP about 60 μl Agro cultures into 3 ml is sufficient for at least 4 plants. FIG. 19 shows the SDS-PAGE analysis of protein extract where plants were infiltrated with Agro/35S:TMV-GFP ΔCP, extracts were made at various times post infiltration, the SDS-PAGE was run with 50 μl protein/lane, and stained with Coomassie Blue. The day 6 sample has about 4 μg GFP/50 μg TSP. H=healthy plant extract; YFP-V5His6 standard from E. coli.

Also, FIG. 20 shows a comparison of protein expression vectors on the lame leaf: 35S:GFP, in the upper left quadrant of the leaf; 35S:GFP+35S:p19, in the upper right quadrant; 35S:TMV:GFP+35S: p19, in the lower left quadrant; and 25S:TMV:GFP ΔCP+35S:p19 (pJL-TRBO-G), in the lower right quadrant.

EXAMPLE V

Protoplasts were generated from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO):GFP infiltrated N. benthamiana leaf, as shown in FIGS. 21A-21B, showing protoplasts made 6 DPI, 2.5 hour digest in enzyme solution.

FIG. 21A: a photograph, taken under white light, showing protoplasts were generated from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO):GFP infiltrated N. benthamiana leaf, showing protoplasts made 6 DPI, 2.5 hour digest in enzyme solution. FIG. 21B: a photograph, taken under UV light, showing protoplasts were generated from pJL48 (pJL-TRBO):GFP infiltrated N. benthamiana leaf, showing protoplasts made 6 DPI, 2.5 hour digest in enzyme solution.

EXAMPLE VI

The vector pJL66 [SEQ ID NO:14] includes a 35S driven DNA encoding for a replicon comprised of sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of TMV in a binary vector backbone, wherein the replicon generated from the transcription of pJL66 is lacking a CP orf. One method for constructing pJL66 includes deleting nucleotides 5788 to 6608 from pJL36.

FIG. 22 shows the pJL66 DNA sequence [SEQ ID NO:14] which includes a 35S driven DNA encoding for a replicon comprised of sequences from the U1 and U5 strains of TMV in a binary vector backbone, where the replicon generated from the transcription of pJL66 is lacking a CP orf. FIG. 23 contains the pJL66 data sheet showing—Binary vector, Kan resistance, T-DNA borders not shown in map. pJL66 is a deletion mutant of pJL24. All sequences downstream of GFP stop codon to last 4 codons of U5 CP were deleted from pJL24.

FIG. 24 contains photographs of plants infected with the TMV vector encoded in pJL66 via agroinfiltration/agroinfection. The TMV vector in pJL66 can efficiently infected N. benthamiana cells in the presence or absence of an RNA silencing suppressor (e.g., p19). The efficiency is comparable to that obtained with GFP-expressing TRBO (which is also in the figure for comparison). TMV vector in binary plasmid pJL66 can be efficiently delivered to plants via agroinfection in the presence or absence of co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor gene. Treatments: 1=co-infiltrated with Agrobacterium cultures Agro/pJL66+Agro/pJL3:p19. 2=Infiltrated with Agro/pJL66 only. 3=co-infiltrated with Agro/pJL-TRBO-G+Agro/pJL3:p19. 4=infiltrated with Agro/pJL-TRBO-G only. Photo under UV light 5 days post infiltration.

The following Table 2 shows the SEQ ID Nos., as used herein:

TABLE 2 Listing of SEQ ID Nos.: [SEQ ID NO: 1] primer JAL 228 (GTATTTTTACAACAATTACCAAC) [SEQ ID NO: 2] reverse direction primer JAL 229 (GGGCCTAGGCTATGACCATGATTACGC) [SEQ ID NO: 3] Overlapping oligonucleotides JAL 230 (taacggcctagggcggccgc) and [SEQ ID NO: 4] JAL 231 (tcgagcggccgccctaggccgttaat) [SEQ ID NO: 5] pJL36 (see FIG. 5B) [SEQ ID NO: 6] the V5 epitope (amino acid sequence GKPIPNPLLGLD) [SEQ ID NO: 7] the DNA cassette (top stand sequence: (CGAGGCCAGAAGAGCAACCTTTACGTACTTGCTCTTCAGCTTGAAGGTA AGCCTATCCCTAACCCTCTCCTCGGTCTCGATTCTACGCGTACCGGTCAT CATCACCATCACCATTGAC) [SEQ ID NO: 8 plasmid pJL43 (see FIG. 2) [SEQ ID NO: 9] JAL 55 (cccttaattaa cATGgaa cgagctata caaggaaac) [SEQ ID NO: 10] reverse direction oligo JAL 11 (ccctactagtcTTActcgccttctttttcgaa) [SEQ ID NO: 11] F primer JAL 286 (GGCCT aaa atggctagcaaaggagaag) [SEQ ID NO: 12] R primer J AL 287 (Gcttatttgtagagctcatccat) [SEQ ID No: 13] pJL48 (pJL-TRBO) (see FIG. 7B) [SEQ ID NO: 14] pJL66 (see FIG. 22) [SEQ ID NO: 15] (with the CP start codon, nts 5712-5714 mutated from ATG to AGA): [SEQ ID NO: 16] the polylinker sequence, ttaattaacggcctagggcggccgc [SEQ ID NO: 17] U1 nts 6177 to 6395 [SEQ ID BO: 18] ATCGAggcctt [SEQ ID NO: 19] 6x His tag [SEQ ID NO: 20]), the influenza hemagglutinin peptide YPYDVPDYA)

While the invention has been described with reference to various and preferred embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the essential scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the invention without departing from the essential scope thereof.

Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed herein contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the claims.

REFERENCES

The publication and other material used herein to illuminate the invention or provide additional details respecting the practice of the invention, are incorporated be reference herein, and for convenience are provided in the following bibliography.

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What is claimed is:
 1. A vector comprising pJL36 having the isolated nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:16.
 2. The vector of claim 1, wherein the isolate nucleic acid sequence is operatively linked to a promoter for expression in a plant cell, and includes a 35S driven Tobacco Mosaic Virus TMV expression vector in a binary vector backbone.
 3. The vector of claim 1, wherein a replicon generated from the transcription of pJL36 is lacking a coat protein open reading frame (CP orf) and is capable of expression of a desired product in plants.
 4. The vector of claim 1, wherein the pJL36 vector, when in the plant, increases expression rate of the desired product in comparison with corresponding wild type plants that do not contain the pJL36 vector.
 5. The vector of claim 1, wherein the pJL36 vector does not generate virion particles, yet demonstrates the ability to synchronously inoculate large numbers of cells in a leaf of the plant.
 6. The vector of claim 1, further including at least one promoter.
 7. The vector of claim 6, wherein the promoter is Cauliflower mosaic virus CaVM35S promoter.
 8. The vector of claim 1, wherein the vector includes a second sequence which encodes for a gene that has RNA silencing suppression functions.
 9. The vector of claim 1, wherein the vector includes a second sequence which encodes for protein P19 from Tomato bushy stunt virus.
 10. The vector of claim 1, wherein vector includes a second sequence which encodes for one or more: P0 protein gene from a polerovirus, HC-Pro protein gene from a potyvirus, CP from turnip crinkle or related viruses, or P21 from beet yellows closterovirus.
 11. An isolated polynucleotide for activating expression specifically in a plant cell, characterized in that the isolated polynucleotide comprises the vector of claim
 1. 12. A recombinant pJL36 vector having a plasmid map shown in FIG. 5A.
 13. The recombinant JL36 vector of claim 12, wherein when stably integrated in the genome of a plant cell, has an increased expression rate of at least one product in comparison with corresponding wild type plants that do not contain the pJL36 vector; and, wherein the pJL36 vector does not generate virion particles, yet demonstrates the ability to synchronously inoculate large numbers of cells in a leaf of the plant.
 14. The vector of claim 12, having restriction sites: PAcI, AvrII and Nod.
 15. A plant cell transformed with the vector of claim
 1. 16. A method of agroinfection comprising infecting at least one plant cell with the vector of claim
 1. 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the infection occurs without any co-expression of an RNA silencing suppressor.
 18. The method of claim 16, comprising infecting the plant cell with pJL36 in Agrobacterium cultures diluted 10, 20, 50 or 100 or more fold, from an initial culture OD₆₀₀ of 1.0.
 19. The method of claim 16, wherein the vector includes a second sequence which encodes for a protein that has RNA silencing suppression functions.
 20. The method of claim 16, wherein the vector includes a second sequence which encodes for the protein P19 from Tomato bushy stunt virus.
 21. The method of claim 16, wherein the vector includes a second sequence which encodes for one or more of the following genes: P0 protein gene from a polerovirus, HC-Pro protein gene from a potyvirus, CP from turnip crinkle or related viruses, or P21 from beet yellows closterovirus.
 22. The method of claim 16, further including introducing a promoter driven version of a first gene of interest into the plant cells by agroinfiltration at the same time, or either before or after, pJL36 vector expressing a second gene of interest is introduced into the plant cells.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein the second gene of interest comprises one or more of antibodies, or antibody fragments, enzymes, hormones, peptides.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein the pJL36 vector enables high-level expression of secreted proteins in plants, or proteins targeted to various subcellular locations.
 25. The method of claim 22, wherein the pJL36 vector enables the expression of multiple proteins in the same cell.
 26. A method for producing a transgenic plant cell comprising: transforming the vector of claim 1 into at least one plant cell to produce a transgenic plant cell or transgenic plant tissue; and, cultivating the transgenic plant cell or transgenic plant tissue to produce the transgenic plant or tissue or cell of the transgenic plant containing the vector of claim
 1. 27. The method as recited in claim 26, wherein transforming is achieved by an Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediating method.
 28. A method for improving agroinfiltration frequency comprising: deleting the CP gene sequence and the viral 3′ non translated sequences encoded in pJL36, and replacing the deleted sequences with TMV U1 nts 6177-6395. 